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[Folly]

In addition, height is genetic but it isn't racial: race doesn't exist on the genetic level in any rigorous manner...
The reason basketball teams are predominantly black is also cultural.

I did not mean to imply that all differences between peoples were caused by race. However, it must be acknowledged that a correlation exists between race, genes, and culture, even if the three are not directly linked. And of those things, race is the most immediately identifiable, and therefore the most effective means of forming initial expectations when encountering someone for the first time.

[Reelya]

There are correlations between genes and enjoying watching baseball however (since specific races/cultures like baseball).

You can also probably prove some level of genetic correlation as to whether people call soda "soda" "pop" or "coke" in the USA.

That doesn't mean the correlations are meaningful.

[helmacon]

not directed at you directly.
it doesn't though most of the time. culture divides along many lines and is tied in with geography, shared history, language, traditions exc.
-snip snoop-
it's right above if you want it.

Yea, maybe often was the wrong word, but it certainly does sometimes. I think the miscommunication here was that the way i said it could be interpreted as "Race causes different cultures" which is not at all what I meant. Culture develops along racial lines for a variety of reasons. A prominent example is the isolation of blacks in america through slavery, and afterwards by jim crow laws and racist sentiment by a large part of the population. Rejected and cut off from the majority culture, it was inevitable that a different culture would develop.

So, a culture develops down racial lines, but not because of "racial differences". It was because of events beyond control, starting with the proliferation of the slave trade.

In the above case the isolation was reinforced from the outside, but often it is self enforced as well. For example, the isolationist nature of the nation of Japan has lead to a very distinct japanese culture based around the japanese racial identity. None of this was caused by any difference in the "Japanese Race" but simply as a result of the decisions of governments, geographical factors, ect, ect..

An example of this originating from religion can be observed in india, from hindu class systems and national tensions.

Anyways, all that to say that culture does end up divided by race sometimes.

[Folly]

There are correlations between genes and enjoying watching baseball however (since specific races/cultures like baseball).
You can also probably prove some level of genetic correlation as to whether people call soda "soda" "pop" or "coke" in the USA.
That doesn't mean the correlations are meaningful.

Of course correlations are meaningful, they're just not causal.

If you test the Koolaid and find that it's poisonous, that doesn't mean that all Koolaid is inherently poisonous. So you stick a sample in a centrifuge and seperate the Koolaid from the poison, and the Koolaid part tests as harmless. You've proven that Koolaid is not intrinsically linked to poison. But that doesn't mean you go back and drink from the pitcher.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That's probably not even the biggest thing. The fact is, IQ isn't particularly scientific. The administration of IQ tests can be easily, even unintentionally manipulated to give the same people different results.

In particular when discussing this, it's well known that the cultural background of the test writer will match to the results of the best test takers. An IQ test written by black Americans will give more favorable results to black Americans and make whites look sub-par.

In short, IQ is only really useful for testing the severity of cognitive disorders, and it's only a little bit better than Myers-Briggs when it comes to empiricism.

[Reelya]

In addition, height is genetic but it isn't racial: race doesn't exist on the genetic level in any rigorous manner...
The reason basketball teams are predominantly black is also cultural.

I did not mean to imply that all differences between peoples were caused by race. However, it must be acknowledged that a correlation exists between race, genes, and culture, even if the three are not directly linked. And of those things, race is the most immediately identifiable, and therefore the most effective means of forming initial expectations when encountering someone for the first time.

In relation to what Reelya mentioned, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study may be of interest to you, along with the interpretations. It's a difficult topic to discuss, but it's worth scientific examination to try find out just what exactly is going on and the various possible causes, whether they be cultural, environmental, or whatever.

(I was actually looking for a different study I recall reading about, done in Maryland I believe, but I can't find it, so I suppose the possibility exists that I confused two 'M' states.)

For my part, I think it's good to read a wide variety of opinions and research, but I'd be very wary of taking small studies as proof of anything.

You can glean a lot from the Minnesota study, but we have to take all the facts into account. For example, one of the headline claims is that black children adopted by white families don't have higher IQs than biologically-raised black children, suggesting that race is the important thing, not upbringing. But that doesn't take into account that the average age of adoption of black children was significantly higher than adopted white children - who do show gains by being adopted by highly educated couples.

Most notably, when they divided the groups into "early adopted" and "late adopted" the difference in measured IQ at age 7 was a whopping 14 points. So if you were adopted earlier by a wealthy couple you gain as much IQ as the total difference between races, regardless of race.

[Sheb]

The American gestalt guarantees that we're incapable of fighting a long war to a satisfactory result, with the possible exception of the Indian Wars, and calling the various Indian wars a cohesive thing is pretty problematic.

I disagree. We tend to forget them, but the US spent much of the early 20th century fighting counter-insurgencies in places like Haiti.

[Reelya]

The American gestalt guarantees that we're incapable of fighting a long war to a satisfactory result, with the possible exception of the Indian Wars, and calling the various Indian wars a cohesive thing is pretty problematic.

I disagree. We tend to forget them, but the US spent much of the early 20th century fighting counter-insurgencies in places like Haiti.

USA invaded Haiti because American bankers were owed money by Haiti. That was the reason that USA was fighting counter-insurgencies. Maybe not the best example.

The US invasion followed 5 years of instability from 1911-1915, but if you read the related wiki pages it seems that the instability was in fact preceded by the USA getting full control of the nations' only bank in 1910, and trying to undermine any non-US friendly politicians, culminating in the control of a very-pro-US dictator who mass-murdered opposition leaders, which lead to a revolt. The USA decided the revolt (against their evil puppet) threatened US economic interests in the nation, so they invaded. The original reason for the destabilization is that America was racist that German-Haitians were the main economic power, and America didn't much like Germans. So the whole thing was in fact precipitated by the USA trying to completely undermine the leading economic/political class in Haiti.

[itisnotlogical]

I do not think people should be allowed to delete or edit anything they post online, unless they own the entire website themselves in which case their house, their rules. I have never seen the ability of a person to delete their own tweet or Facebook post used in a constructive manner. That includes anybody anywhere on the scale from "private citizen" (you and me) to "public figure" (politician, CEO, etc).

If you do not have the strength of rhetoric to either refute or stand by something that you said previously, maaaaybe you ought not post it? The same is true if it's something that can be damaging to you. If you don't want compromising pictures of yourself on the Internet, the first and easiest step should be don't put them on the Internet.

If somebody posts damaging content of another person, the poster is usually not the person to remove it anyway. That would be the site's administrators, and I'm not arguing that we should get rid of mods and site admins.

I'm tired of people using the delete button as a means to shut down arguments, end discussion that the owner of the content doesn't like, and to cover up mistakes and things they shouldn't have said anyway. I fear a world where anything anybody says is infinitely deletable. There was already not enough accountability in the world, and there is even less now.

[Frumple]

You take away my ability to fix spelling and grammar errors and you may just drive me to violence. Force me to double post and there stops being a may involved :V

[Criptfeind]

unless they own the entire website themselves in which case their house, their rules

Can't you just immediately extend this logic to the people who own the web site setting it as a rule that people using their website can delete their stuff freely?

[itisnotlogical]

The entire thing I said is that that should not be the case. The idea is that an administrator with no personal stake can decide if something is truly damaging and needs to be removed, or if the person is just trying to frivolously delete something that they regret posting.

[TheBiggerFish]

The entire thing I said is that that should not be the case. The idea is that an administrator with no personal stake can decide if something is truly damaging and needs to be removed, or if the person is just trying to frivolously delete something that they regret posting.

But the thing is, it's not deleted.

[itisnotlogical]

Are you talking about things like Wayback Machine? There's no preventing stuff like that unless you outlaw web spiders, caching, archives and databases.

If you're talking about admins not doing their job and/or judging content incorrectly, that's just poor administration. That has been around, will always be around, and is outside the scope of the scenario I envision.

[Criptfeind]

The entire thing I said is that that should not be the case.

Right, I know you did. But I'm not sure I see the moral difference between an owner having the power to delete their own posts and anyone else having to do it so long as the owner thinks it's okay, which they at least implicitly do if it's possible. (I realized after posting that implicitly has two, almost opposite, meanings. I mean that if it's possible to delete something off a site then the owner at least must be somewhat okay with it, otherwise they'd make it impossible.)