What is your view on social Darinism ?

Terrlock

Hi Guys,

What are your views on social Darwinism.

I seen an interesting Documentary on social Darwinism and it seem to spawn an excuse for white people to exterminate other races they viewed as inferior.

I'm new to this topic of Social Darwinism. Is it true that the whites are the more evolved race on the planet and are more intelligent.

Very interesting documentary, a lot of it I've never learnt in the history books in school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPwwvyHEUk

Absolam

I saw a documentary that said trolls died out as a result of social darwinism, but I can't find a link at the moment...

King Mob

Absolam wrote: »

I saw a documentary that said trolls died out as a result of social darwinism, but I can't find a link at the moment...

Probably because of bad camouflage. If they stand out too much, they just aren't going to breed.

Turtwig

Absolam wrote: »

I saw a documentary that said trolls died out as a result of social darwinism, but I can't find a link at the moment...

Did you check under the bridge?

BlaasForRafa

Turtwig wrote: »

Did you check under the bridge?

Everybody always forgets the viaducts...

Turtwig

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Everybody always forgets the viaducts...

Really? You'd have thought it'd be hard for people to get over them.

Delirium

What is your view on social Darinism ?

Not really a fan of sewing :P

Penn

Terrlock wrote: »

Is it true that the whites are the more evolved race on the planet and are more intelligent.

No.

Brian Shanahan

Terrlock wrote: »

Hi Guys,

What are your views on social Darwinism.

I seen an interesting Documentary on social Darwinism and it seem to spawn an excuse for white people to exterminate other races they viewed as inferior.

I'm new to this topic of Social Darwinism. Is it true that the whites are the more evolved race on the planet and are more intelligent.

Very interesting documentary, a lot of it I've never learnt in the history books in school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPwwvyHEUk

It is an unscientific prejudice used for two reasons and two reasons only, 1) by racists to try and promote their hatred into something legitimate, and 2) by fundie christians to try and blacken the name of science and Charles Darwin. Often times it has been used by christians to justify their mass rapes, murders and enslavements in non-christian lands (mainly in the time before Darwin, so the racism took a more overtly religious tone, and wasn't called Social Darwinism, but religious duty amongst the heathen) and was the main cause for the creation and exponential rise of modern racism (before the 1600s most people didn't classify others on the colour of their skin, and most discrimination was exclusively religious. After, suddenly Africans, Asians, Native Americans and all the other non-European peoples became sub-human). It literally has no relation to Evolutionary events or the scientific Theory of Evolution.

The whole idea of Social Darwinism (and its antecedents) is a religious and racist phenomenon.

Edit: I note that you link to a video put up by one racist for other racists to gloat over. Nice.

robindch

Absolam wrote: »

I saw a documentary that said trolls died out as a result of social darwinism, but I can't find a link at the moment...

I've a wonderful proof of this, but this site is too small to contain it.

Dades

Terrlock wrote: »

I seen an interesting Documentary on social Darwinism and it seem to spawn an excuse for white people to exterminate other races they viewed as inferior.

That's not far off the reality.

It misrepresents a phrase like "survival of the fittest" to validate the worst human behavior throughout history. It suggests that the nature has deigned that the weaker can be removed by reason of natural order.

The corollary of this is that we are no better than animals, and have no control over our instincts. Which of course is an insult to animals, and somewhat plays down the uniqueness of human beings.

Terrlock wrote: »

I'm new to this topic of Social Darwinism. Is it true that the whites are the more evolved race on the planet and are more intelligent.

No. And it's that type of bullshit generalisation that people use to act like dicks.

Orion

We could ask Dav to get a second hamster to accommodate the proof. Think the current hamster is light coloured - maybe a dark one might work harder.

Terrlock

Orion wrote: »

We could ask Dav to get a second hamster to accommodate the proof. Think the current hamster is light coloured - maybe a dark one might work harder.

Funny you say that.

A friend of mine had 5 newly born chickens, 5 of them were white and 1 was black.

All the white ones ganged up on the black one and killed it.

Maybe this racist hate we have is not just in humans.

a lot of people were killed in the name of Christianity as the English use the excuse that they were un civilized, more were killed in the name of social Darwinism and Eugenics. Blacks and actually also the Irish were thought to be less evolved. I guess it made it easy for them to reason that it was OK to allow us to starve to death in the famine when there was actually plenty of food.

Why do man hate each other so much. A lot of people still hold strongly to Eugenics and use it as an excuse to push for more abortions and sterilization in Black communities then white.

We can see religions around the world killing each other just because in their few they don't worship their so called God.

Will this insanity ever stop?

Absolam

Orion wrote: »

We could ask Dav to get a second hamster to accommodate the proof. Think the current hamster is light coloured - maybe a dark one might work harder.

Might be tricky... I'm not sure trolls can tell the difference between goats and hamsters, and as any mill owner will tell you, you don't want a troll chasing a goat in your mill wheel. There's no stopping that kind of insanity. Except with a wall, which is where it usually ends. Messy all round really.

Dades

Terrlock wrote: »

Will this insanity ever stop?

Not until we we get holodecks, tbh.

We've culturally and technologically evolved much faster than our biological evolution. We're still essentially the xenophobic tribesmen we once were (and primates before that... and so on). Only now we have nuclear weapons and the means to eliminate whole "tribes" at the push of a button (of course some tribes still rely on AK47s and machetes). Coupled with that we also have ideologies which are as much to blame as technology - just ask any suicide bomber. A "gift" to us from our bigger brains which are so easily manipulated, but also led by the baser instincts we haven't yet shed.

It's the reason I'm reluctant to declare myself a humanist. While I've faith in the values and agency of many humans, as a species we're a mess.

robindch

Orion wrote: »

Think the current hamster is light coloured - maybe a dark one might work harder.

Which Star Trek Original Series episode had the crew landing on a planet where the inhabitants had their faces painted white on one side, black on the other?

Can't remember anything about save something similar to the following unbeatable line:

Some Inhabitant to Kirk wrote:

But Captain! You don't understand! I'm white on the left side of my face!

magicbastarder

Dades wrote: »

It's the reason I'm reluctant to declare myself a humanist. While I've faith in the values and agency of many humans, as a species we're a mess.

i would have thought decribing yourself as a humanist is a declaration of what you aspire to, rather than a statement on the state of the human race.

robindch

Dades wrote: »

We're still essentially the xenophobic tribesmen we once were [...]

Which is why stuff like the current deluge of xenophobia, homophobia, heterophobia in all its forms produced by Russian state-controlled media is so frightening - if the country didn't have a large population or nukes, it would matter less. But it has both.

Less controversially (or maybe not), here's the excellent Jane Elliott and her famous "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes" social experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAmdZvKf6M

Pherekydes

Terrlock wrote: »

A friend of mine had 5 newly born chickens, 5 of them were white and 1 was black.

Math un-good.

Troll un-good, too.

robindch

magicbastarder wrote: »

i would have thought decribing yourself as a humanist is a declaration of what you aspire to, rather than a statement on the state of the human race.

Can't speak for Dades, but I'm reluctant to describe myself as anything. It's a much more easily defensible position, both internally and externally, to say that one holds views of one kind or another - and keep them separate from one's identity.

Turtwig

Well, I have noticed that mods tend to post in darker text more often when they ban people.

Mr. CooL ICE

I'm not racist. I have a coloured TV

kyogger

I suppose any discussion of that topic will be inherently 'racist'. But to be fair to the OP I don't see why that has to be interpreted as him 'hating'. I agree maybe the question could be asked in a more neutral manner.

It is potentially an interesting topic and it could be an interesting thread if the topic was discussed with maturity.

Is it racist for me to say "I think Asians are better at arithmetic than Caucasians" (given I am Caucasian).

Yes, as Dades points out with Barrack Obama picture above it is not an absolute. I am not saying that ALL Asians are smarter than ALL Caucasians. Rather, perhaps the AVERAGE Asian is stronger at Arithmetic than the AVERAGE Caucasian. Giving examples of where the observation is not the case is a red herring and a waste of time really.


It's a sensitive topic, but people can get wound up the wrong way and misinterpret and some times it is immaturity demonstrated by the audience rather than the person posing the question with genuine interest.

I think with a bit of maturity an interesting question can be asked, for example:

Is it possible one race is more evolved than another and that explains some of the conflict we see today between races? (terretorial competition, mating competition, etc)

silverharp

kyogger wrote: »

I think with a bit of maturity an interesting question can be asked, for example:

Is it possible one race is more evolved than another and that explains some of the conflict we see today between races? (terretorial competition, mating competition, etc)

Probably useful to define evolved. It doesn't have to mean stronger faster smarter or at least natural selection doesn't , its purely a numbers game.

Also looking back in history other cultures like the Egyptians or Chinese had more advanced societies when Europeans were largely living in mud huts. So the idea that Europeans are made if better stuff, I don't think so

kyogger

silverharp wrote: »

Probably useful to define evolved. It doesn't have to mean stronger faster smarter or at least natural selection doesn't , its purely a numbers game.

It is another interesting question, how do we define or measure evolution. Are monkeys really less 'evolved' if they don't have any actual biological need for iPhones or skyscrapers. Perhaps the general consensus of evolved (the laymans interpretation) when it comes to humans is meausred by factors such as intelligence, crime, societal structure, technology, unemployment etc.

Maybe from a biological point of view the race that provides the best conditions and environment for reproduction is the most evolved? (Optimise probabilty of human race surviving)

silverharp wrote: »

Also looking back in history other cultures like the Egyptians or Chinese had more advanced societies when Europeans were largely living in mud huts. So the idea that Europeans are made if better stuff, I don't think so

Yes, again it may not be the case that what we consider the most 'evolved' society might no always have been.

But at least today, can we look at specific areas of Africa, or the Middle East, and say that their race is 'less evolved' as defined above. And so is it soemthing programmed into our beings to avoid interaction with people of that race, not mate with them, not give them a job etc to help make that race extinct? Ie is one of the roots of racism a Darwinian survival of fittest mechanism?

silverharp

kyogger wrote: »

It is another interesting question, how do we define or measure evolution. Are monkeys really less 'evolved' if they don't have any actual biological need for iPhones or skyscrapers. Perhaps the general consensus of evolved (the laymans interpretation) when it comes to humans is meausred by factors such as intelligence, crime, societal structure, technology, unemployment etc.

Maybe from a biological point of view the race that provides the best conditions and environment for reproduction is the most evolved? (Optimise probabilty of human race surviving)


Yes, again it may not be the case that what we consider the most 'evolved' society might no always have been.

But at least today, can we look at specific areas of Africa, or the Middle East, and say that their race is 'less evolved' as defined above. And so is it soemthing programmed into our beings to avoid interaction with people of that race, not mate with them, not give them a job etc to help make that race extinct? Ie is one of the roots of racism a Darwinian survival of fittest mechanism?

Comparing societies is much more complicated than animals as its more to do with social capital , access to resources etc. For instance Egypt depended on the Nile so it was much more of a command and control economy but with world beating agriculture at the time.
Greece on the other hand having such a large coastline couldn't be too centralised as people wouldn't cooperate and there was no way of forcing them. Natives in indonesia would be unlikely to have any kind of critical mass to develop any kind of advanced society.
So special genetics? No , had aliens come and switched the american Indians out with the Europeans several thousand years ago , they probably would have developed like Europeans did. You would then be down to accidents of history for instance the Chinese retreating into themselves in the middle ages when they were in the verge of creating ocean going ships. They might have reached america before the European (Indians) ;-)

Turtwig

Hang on,

Are some people trying to make a serious discussion out of this thread?

kyogger

Turtwig wrote: »

Hang on,

Are some people trying to make a serious discussion out of this thread?

Why not?

It may well be the case that there is no race more 'evolved' or 'better' than each other, but what is the problem with discussing it? For me, that beats roaring 'racist' and 'troll' every time a discussion regarding 'races' crops up.

silverharp

Turtwig wrote: »

Hang on,

Are some people trying to make a serious discussion out of this thread?

Either way I dont think we are having one that the op intended.....

Brian Shanahan

robindch wrote: »

I've a wonderful proof of this, but this site is too small to contain it.

Ah, so that's where you've ended up M. Fermat!

legspin

Turtwig wrote: »

Hang on,

Are some people trying to make a serious discussion out of this thread?

Makes a nice change alright.