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Since when does fascism / alt right need facts to further their agenda? Cutting off research funding for sensitive topics does nothing to stave off our fall int

Since when does fascism / alt right need facts to further their agenda? Cutting off research funding for sensitive topics does nothing to stave off our fall into dystopia. If it's ok to do affirmative action based on race, it's also ok to do it based on other genes. I wonder why every progressive in this thread is suddenly afraid of having to discriminate people based on yet-unknown gene factors when their crowd is ok to discriminate based on known skin color (as long as it matches their notion of who should be discriminated against).

atoav 5y ago
> Since when does fascism / alt right need facts to further their agenda? Cutting off research funding for sensitive topics does nothing to stave off our fall into dystopia. Did I say I wanted to cut funding to genetics? What I did was explaining a perspective which I don't share for the most part. What I said is that the idea of willfully designing the shape of a society based on some features of the body (blood, genes, shape of the skull, ...) stands in the tradition of horrible genocides. My grandfather was a Nazi, so this is not some abstract thing for me, but him explaining that e.g. people from the balkan region are "just thieves" because it is "in their blood" would be a thing that he would certainly also read out of genetics. I am all for research of genetics for medical purposes, there lies great potential there. I think exploring links between sociology and genetics is also quite interesting. What I am vehemently against is to divide people based on genetics and make policy based on that alone. > I wonder why every progressive in this thread is suddenly afraid of having to discriminate people based on yet-unknown gene factors when their crowd is ok to discriminate based on known skin color (as long as it matches their notion of who should be discriminated against). I guess american progressives think they need to do this to correct centuries of the pendulum leaning into the other direction. While I aknowledge the fact (centuries of opression against non-white people), I don't agree with the conclusions in extremo. Of course a majority white society has the duty to deal with it's racist heritage pay reparations to the ancestors of that violence and opression etc. If Germany pays reparation to victims of the Holocaust this isn't racism against Germans, it is the pure minimum any decent free society would do. Similarily the significant injustice that has been dealt to native americans or people of color has to be confronted in a serious and fair manner. Giving justice to that injustice can of course look from the outside as if they get a unfair advantage over us who had the luck not to have had such a history. That doesn't feel good, because one has to accept the injustices the own society and nation has done and it lessens our role in the story. But it is necessary.
- clusterfish 5y ago
  It does sound like you want to cut funding for genetics research that could tie genes to intelligence, performance, and stuff like that. Is that not the case? Because picking which science should be funded based on your preferred social order is not science, it's politics. It's the same as conservatives cancelling weather satellites so that they don't have to see the climate data being produced so that they have an easier time continuing to deny climate change. Science is about learning things. How or whether those learnings should be applied is a question of politics. Blanket-censoring entire fields of research for political reasons is not the answer to anything. You talk about how you don't want extreme race-based policy, but at the same time the only injustice you're contemplating on correcting is based on race. I don't hear any calls to pay reparations for any past injustices that were based on non-racial issues, not from you, not from "the left" in general.

atoav 5y ago

> Since when does fascism / alt right need facts to further their agenda? Cutting off research funding for sensitive topics does nothing to stave off our fall into dystopia. Did I say I wanted to cut funding to genetics? What I did was explaining a perspective which I don't share for the most part. What I said is that the idea of willfully designing the shape of a society based on some features of the body (blood, genes, shape of the skull, ...) stands in the tradition of horrible genocides. My grandfather was a Nazi, so this is not some abstract thing for me, but him explaining that e.g. people from the balkan region are "just thieves" because it is "in their blood" would be a thing that he would certainly also read out of genetics. I am all for research of genetics for medical purposes, there lies great potential there. I think exploring links between sociology and genetics is also quite interesting. What I am vehemently against is to divide people based on genetics and make policy based on that alone. > I wonder why every progressive in this thread is suddenly afraid of having to discriminate people based on yet-unknown gene factors when their crowd is ok to discriminate based on known skin color (as long as it matches their notion of who should be discriminated against). I guess american progressives think they need to do this to correct centuries of the pendulum leaning into the other direction. While I aknowledge the fact (centuries of opression against non-white people), I don't agree with the conclusions in extremo. Of course a majority white society has the duty to deal with it's racist heritage pay reparations to the ancestors of that violence and opression etc. If Germany pays reparation to victims of the Holocaust this isn't racism against Germans, it is the pure minimum any decent free society would do. Similarily the significant injustice that has been dealt to native americans or people of color has to be confronted in a serious and fair manner. Giving justice to that injustice can of course look from the outside as if they get a unfair advantage over us who had the luck not to have had such a history. That doesn't feel good, because one has to accept the injustices the own society and nation has done and it lessens our role in the story. But it is necessary.

clusterfish 5y ago
It does sound like you want to cut funding for genetics research that could tie genes to intelligence, performance, and stuff like that. Is that not the case? Because picking which science should be funded based on your preferred social order is not science, it's politics. It's the same as conservatives cancelling weather satellites so that they don't have to see the climate data being produced so that they have an easier time continuing to deny climate change. Science is about learning things. How or whether those learnings should be applied is a question of politics. Blanket-censoring entire fields of research for political reasons is not the answer to anything. You talk about how you don't want extreme race-based policy, but at the same time the only injustice you're contemplating on correcting is based on race. I don't hear any calls to pay reparations for any past injustices that were based on non-racial issues, not from you, not from "the left" in general.