patrick.net

i think that judaism also allows and even encourages questioning of all aspects of the religion - as long as you continue to follow the 613 mitzvot.

613 mitzvots is not like sharia because it does not promote violence to mediate differences and non-adherence, but it is similar in a sense that it is based on following "laws" and can literally intrude on every level of existence and interfere with comfortably living a western lifestyle.

buddhism does not stress faith, but instead practice and a kind of scientific approach, though it's still a bit woo-woo

Sources seem very inconsistent about whether Buddhism entails a belief in the supernatural. If it does not, then it is not a religion, but simply a philosophy, and none of my objections to religion or faith applies to it. I may or may not like the philosophy or specific parts. I may find inconsistencies and logical errors in the philosophy, but those objections would have nothing to do with religion.

However, if the Buddhist beliefs contain supernatural beliefs or beliefs based on faith rather than evidence, particularly if those beliefs are debunked by science, then it is a religion and all my arguments apply to it no matter how nebulous the religion tries to make its supernatural beliefs.

That said, the impression I get, and it may be wrong given that few people have the ability to write objectively and without political correctness when talking about anything that smacks of religion or culture, is that Buddhists are largely divided on issues of superstitions. Some Buddhists believe greatly in supernatural phenomenon while others are pure naturalists, and there's a whole gamut between these two positions.

Buddhism is certainly one of the least objectionable, if not the least, religion/cultures in human history, but there is no reason why the culture or philosophy of Buddhism should require any lies, faith, or the belief in the supernatural. Every good thing about Buddhism is justifiable using rationality and verifiable truth.

Dan8267 says

However, if the Buddhist beliefs contain supernatural beliefs or beliefs based on faith rather than evidence, particularly if those beliefs are debunked by science, then it is a religion and all my arguments apply to it no matter how nebulous the religion tries to make its supernatural beliefs.

Buddhism as it is practiced by 99% of Buddhists outside of California and a few Zen Temples in Japan is riddled with supernatural belief. That previous Buddhas can cure you of disease, as well as many other local superstitions. Also that Demons try to stop you from being enlightened, while others are helpers. Such as Mara, the Demon of lust.

Right now in Tibetan Buddhism there is a battle going on over whether a Demon is a helper angel or an Enlightenment-retarding Demon. Buddhism actually has more writings on Demonology than the Catholic Church by a long shot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden_controversy

Ironman says

and now you have free Obamacare for Millennials.

Obamacare ain't free.Ironman says

and now you have Section 8 that many Millennials get.

Section 8 isn't modestly priced housing to be pruchased by one person with a semi/unskilled job after a few years in the job in their mid to late 20s.

Ironman says

and 50% of the population doesn't pay any federal taxes now, how many Millennials are in that group?

Much of the population paid no to very little federal taxes historically. Nothing new here.

thunderlips11 says

Buddhism as it is practiced by 99% of Buddhists outside of California and a few Zen Temples in Japan is riddled with supernatural belief. That previous Buddhas can cure you of disease, as well as many other local superstitions. Also that Demons try to stop you from being enlightened, while others are helpers. Such as Mara, the Demon of lust.

Well that would explain President Dumb Ass from Sri Lanka. Any faith-based institution, especially one built on supernatural beliefs, is going to have bad results. In fact, faith almost by definition means that beliefs will be supernatural because natural laws are all deduced from evidence, not faith.

thunderlips11 says

Right now in Tibetan Buddhism there is a battle going on over whether a Demon is a helper angel or an Enlightenment-retarding Demon. Buddhism actually has more writings on Demonology than the Catholic Church by a long shot.

And I thought the book below was crazy.

Oh, Dan, another example, Cambodia (Buddhist) charging Pol Pot regime members. Buddhist clerics are opposed, and also opposed to a commission that looks at the crimes of dead Pol Pot regime members, on the grounds they're already being punished by being reincarnated as insects or something.

marcus says

I would love it, if Patrick could elaborate on the following, explaining what he means and why. Maybe give some examples of the harm incurred by not embracing this important truth, or an example of how embracing this important truth would be helpful.

we should put the truth above sentiment

Well, I didn't think so.

At least maybe he understands why I think he's a racist. Or maybe I should say more of a racist than some of us, since we are all racist to one degree or another.

thunderlips11 says

Oh, Dan, another example, Cambodia (Buddhist) charging Pol Pot regime members. Buddhist clerics are opposed, and also opposed to a commission that looks at the crimes of dead Pol Pot regime members, on the grounds they're already being punished by being reincarnated as insects or something.

Oh how Hollywood likes to cartoonify things, including Buddhism.

but we should put the truth above sentiment.

You realize the article hardly gives an empirical proof of the role of genetics in history? A lots of 'may', that's all. I guess it's difficult to find natural experiments. From the ones we have (e.g separation of Korea into South and North), social changes matter more than genetic ones.

ja says

social changes matter more than genetic ones

no proof either way. my bet is that both have significant contributions.

ja says

social changes matter more than genetic ones

I don't think that statement is meaningful. How does one measure the impact of genetics versus nurture? For example, how much does genetics matter in terms of musical talent? No amoeba has ever written a symphony, so evidently a great deal. Comparing nurture vs nature needs much more precise questions.

marcus says

As for "the denial of race" phrase, I find this to be a straw man, because people trying to say that we are all close to the same, and that differences among races are for the most part do to cultural and social differences, are usually not trying to say that there are no races. Those who do say this for whatever reasons are being extreme with their semantics to make a point.

I would love it, if Patrick could elaborate on the following, explaining what he means and why. Maybe give some examples of the harm incurred by not embracing this important truth, or an example of how embracing this important truth would be helpful.

not a straw man. i was explicitly taught in college that there are no races, and it just ain't true. you can cut it up different ways, but the differences are real.

i would have been failed for challenging this, even though it was scientifically wrong.

i just mean that lying about scientific reality for social engineering reasons ruins your credibility in the long term. truth in itself is a virtue. call it a religion if you want, but i think even dan likes that particular religion.

when people realize they have been lied to in order to further a political agenda, it makes them cynical. like me. i wouldn't want other people to become like me you know. :-)

i just mean that lying about scientific reality for social engineering reasons ruins your credibility in the long term.

Absolutely. And even more importantly, a good social agenda and policy making can only be done on the basis of truth and transparency. In order to solve any problem correctly and permanently, it must be public knowledge how both the problem and the solution work. There's an old saying in IT, no security through obscurity, and this saying applies to engineering fixes to any problem. Legislating is just coding in a crude and primitive language, "legalease". Yes, that language lacks the precision, clarity, and elegance of programming languages, but writing a policy or law is essentially just coding.

Just as deception serves no place in science, mathematics, or software development, it serves no place in social advancement, economics government, or policy making. The latter are simply arts that have yet to be turned into proper sciences. All studies should be a science and subject to the same rules of engagement because the scientific method just plain works. It is the greatest invention of mankind, a self-correcting mechanism for discovering the truth and understanding how things work. And ultimately all engineering is based on the knowledge obtain through this manner.

ruth in itself is a virtue. call it a religion if you want, but i think even dan likes that particular religion.

I wouldn't call it a religion. I don't believe a truth because of faith. I believe a truth because
1. There is a proof of it.
2. There are multiple lines of evidence independently confirming it.
3. I understand the truth in a deep manner. Understanding is convincing. I can never be convinced of something I don't understand. What would that even mean?

when people realize they have been lied to in order to further a political agenda, it makes them cynical.

I think the vast majority of American adults have come to accept not only that politicians lie, but also that the principle of lying to further a cause you think is in your interest or "morally justified" or "the lesser of two evils" is justified. For example, as dumb as people who watch Fox News are -- and scientific studies have demonstrated they are considerably dumb -- I don't think the Fox News audience actually believes that Fox tells the truth. I think they believe that whatever Fox News says, if they and enough people repeat the lie and pretend it's the truth, their politicians will be able to pass legislation and policy as if those lies were the truth. And so they consciously make the decision to go along with the lie no matter what.

There is nothing on NPR, PBS, CNN, or MSNBC that even remotely comes close to that. Political correctness on the left is essentially the same thing though.

Dan8267 says

I learn new things every day.

"Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

P N Dr Lo R says

"Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Please give me a detailed example of how I fit that. Otherwise, you are simply making a baseless ad hominem attack, and that is a sign of a weak position and a feeble mind. Chicken-shitting out after such a challenge is also a sign of moral weakness and intellectual incompetence.

www.youtube.com/embed/eKmRkS1os7k

I've watched this video twice while waiting for a response.

Dan8267 says

I've watched this video twice while waiting for a response.

Six months later...

Well, I guess P N Dr Lo R is conceding that he's full of shit.

Dan8267 says

I have no problem with a scientific definition of race, but I sincerely doubt that any scientific, genetically meaningful definition of race would generate the same groupings that human history has, just like the definition of continental plate does not remotely relate to the continents we historically named.

I'm not the only one who thinks this.

www.youtube.com/embed/GLcg6jyg3zk

The historic notations of race are socio-historic constructs with little resemblance to biological criteria for grouping people based on genetics. Such biological groupings are perfectly valid, but produce groups that are vastly different from historical accounts both in content and in the number of groupings. Biological groupings could easily create hundreds of races and that's not very convenient to people who want only several races in order to easily distinguish people.

Everyone should be damned proud of who they are. I know I am proud of them.

rando says

i was explicitly taught in college that there are no races

If that's true, it silly and it's silly to get hung up on it. It's a semantics argument. Both you and the flaky professor that said that can both be right because you don't mean the same thing by race.

Here's Bill Nye, a smart guy arguing that there's no such thing as race. http://bigthink.com/words-of-wisdom/bill-nye-theres-no-such-thing-as-race

It's semantics.

The important thing is do you think that race can make someone more likely to be a criminal or an idiot ? That is, independent of social factors that occur over a small number of generations. Most informed intelligent people say no.

marcus says

rando says

i was explicitly taught in college that there are no races

If that's true, it silly and it's silly to get hung up on it. It's a semantics argument. Both you and the flaky professor that said that can both be right because you don't mean the same thing by race.

Genetically, we are 99.999% the same. We are all descendants of Apes.

which begs the question, is the chimpanzee a member of a different race than say, the gorilla, the lemar, the libbies???

Strategist says

Genetically, we are 99.999% the same. We are all descendants of Apes.

Where is Hispanic or Latino on the chart?

So I guess what Patrick's saying is that Jews and Asians are much sharper on the whole than the average Caucasian, and we white folk are fucked going forward?

I guess I agree with that.

Hell the Nazis had to purge the Jews from their professional classes in the 30s, since they had begun to monopolize all the high-paying professions, given their IQ superiority.

I sure felt a lot dumber when I was living in Tokyo in the 90s, LOL.

Great being back in the states, where I'm a super-genius*

*until I interview at a Microsoft, Google, or Apple campus

Where are the Saudis?

Bellingham Bill says

So I guess what Patrick's saying is that Jews and Asians are much sharper on the whole than the average Caucasian, and we white folk are fucked going forward?

Jews and Asians are on average smarter than white people, and that does seem to be partly genetic, but everything is a bell curve and there's a lot of overlap, so it's not deterministic. Ie, you can't just say any given Jew or Asian will be smarter than any random white person, nor how history will turn out.

The Saudis are very inbred:

Across the Arab world today an average of 45 percent of married couples are related, according to Dr. Nadia Sakati, a pediatrician and senior consultant for the genetics research center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.

In some parts of Saudi Arabia, particularly in the south, where Mrs. Hefthi was raised, the rate of marriage among blood relatives ranges from 55 to 70 percent, among the highest rates in the world, according to the Saudi government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/world/saudi-arabia-awakes-to-the-perils-of-inbreeding.html

Another interesting tidbit I ran across recently: yes, all humans of the same gender are 99.9% identical or something like that, but the mere fact of having a Y chromosome or an extra X makes men much more closely related to other men and women to women. So much so that a male chimpanzee is more closely related to a male human than a female human is related to a male human! And similar for females.

I'm going to disagree and say race is not real, because I don't believe in aliens. The only context I've ever heard the word "race" in where it makes sense is the human race. Now if you want to say ethnicity is real, well what moron would ever argue with that?

rando says

So much so that a male chimpanzee is more closely related to a male human than a female human is related to a male human! And similar for females.

Wait, is this essentially saying that a human male having a penis and a female human having a vagina (in addition to all the internal differences in reproductive organs and functions) is a bigger difference than the difference in intelligence between human male and a chimpanzee male ?

That's pretty nonsensical if you ask me. I guess we could say that an apple and a orange are more similar to each other than a forklift is similar to a boat. But I don't know what metrics would be used to draw this conclusion. Seems silly to me rather than profound.

rando says

Bellingham Bill says

So I guess what Patrick's saying is that Jews and Asians are much sharper on the whole than the average Caucasian, and we white folk are fucked going forward?

THe question is: if any race that you think is less intelligent than another were to have a cultural shift with respect to mating patterns, say for example such that a significant majority of females placed the highest emphasis in mate selection criteria on intelligence and potential career success in modern society, how much would this change in just a few hundred years (nothing close to an evolutionary time scale). Would the difference still be there ?

I don't think we know the answer to that. But my opinion is there would be no difference. Besides we can't really measure intelligence, since there are so many different types: emotional intelligence, creative intelligence (of many kinds), imagination, common sense, analytical, logic and problems solving, sense of humor, and social intelligence and so on. Not to mention so many skills that would not usually be classified as types of intelligence.

NuttBoxer says

Now if you want to say ethnicity is real,

Ethnicity only gets you farther into the weeds as it is even more poorly defined. Current PC practice can keep it pretty simple - there are white people and there are colored people. Asians who may be whiter than some white people are apparently colored people, if they choose to be. People with Spanish surnames can also claim to be colored people, if that proves to be advantageous.

rando says

The Saudis are very inbred:

Generations of inbreeding results in freaks.

marcus says

THe question is: if any race that you think is less intelligent than another were to have a cultural shift with respect to mating patterns, say for example such that a significant majority of females placed the highest emphasis in mate selection criteria on intelligence and potential career success in modern society, how much would this change in just a few hundred years (nothing close to an evolutionary time scale). Would the difference still be there ?

I don't think we know the answer to that. But my opinion is there would be no difference.

I think that experiment has actually been done. Ashkenazi (European) Jews did have a system of occupations and marriages where more intelligent men had more children for something like a thousand years, say 800 AD to 1800 AD (ok, "common era" for you hardcore Jews).

And Jews did end up significantly smarter on average because of it, and it is genetic. That higher intelligence comes with the cost of susceptibility to more genetic diseases.

And I bet similar dynamics explain the over-achievement of the Igbo people in Nigeria, though I don't know as many details about that.

Race is absolutely not a social construct. It is biological fact.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220519200857/https://www.boston.com/news/health/2022/05/18/scientists-create-ai-race-from-x-rays-dont-know-how-it-works-harvard-mit/

Additionally, the fact that humans are unable to detect what features of the images are tipping off the AI systems to the patient’s race, combined with the fact that the AI systems were still accurately detecting the patient’s race regardless of what part of the body the image was taken from, as well as when the images were greatly degraded, means that it would be extremely hard to create an AI system using medical imaging that does not have a racial bias, the study authors wrote.

One should treat all races equally - except in medicine, where one's race can make a large difference in how well various treatments work.

someone else says

And Jews did end up significantly smarter on average because of it, and it is genetic. That higher intelligence comes with the cost of susceptibility to more genetic diseases.

And I bet similar dynamics explain the over-achievement of the Igbo people in Nigeria, though I don't know as many details about that.

For the Igbo, yes, because herding is a very abstract, planning and thinking exercise.

Ethnicities that practice ocean fishing and herding are generally the smartest: You have to do guess work as to weather, learn different methodologies for knots, ropes, sails, wind apparent angle, leeway, currents, etc. You have to say "I think the grass on the other side of the valley would be best. On the other hand, it hasn't rained much this season, but maybe it did in the rain shadow on the other side of the hill. Now let me count my sheep and train my dogs." or "Will the fish be biting again on this bank, or that bank? What was the weather like last week? Will I face a storm? How much netting width do I need if I have to encounter one fish versus another."

Primitive farming is basically seed spray and praying for the floods/monsoon/rains/sun to come in order.

Just FYI Ashkenazi are 2/3rd White, with the entire maternal line coming from a starter base of about half a dozen West Coast Italian/Sardinian/Corsican (the last two famous for sailors and intelligence) maternal ancestors.

That's interesting. My wife's father is Jewish, and her mother is Armenian. Yet 23andme shows her as a small part Sardinian.

Patrick says

Corsican (the last two famous for sailors and intelligence)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV52zs4-sNU

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/12/what-does-it-mean-to-be-genetically-jewish

In recent years, a number of high-profile commentators have appropriated these scientific insights to push the idea that genetics can determine who we are socially, none more controversially than the former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade. In his 2014 book, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, Wade argues that genetic differences in human populations manifest in predictable social differences between those groups.

His book was strongly denounced by almost all prominent researchers in the field as a shoddy incarnation of race science, but the idea that our DNA can determine who we are in some social sense has also crept into more mainstream perspectives.

In an op-ed published in the New York Times last year, the Harvard geneticist David Reich argued that although genetics does not substantiate any racist stereotypes, differences in genetic ancestry do correlate to many of today’s racial constructs. “I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism,” he wrote. “But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among ‘races’.”

Reich’s op-ed was shared widely and drew condemnation from other geneticists and social science researchers.

Lol, another truth that may not be spoken.

https://notthebee.com/article/this-man-just-crushed-the-world-record-marathon-time-in-chicago

Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya is the new record-holder for the fastest marathon time, at just 35 seconds past the two hour mark. This is an amazing feat, and he did it all without a coach.

Pretty much all marathon winners are Kenyan.

It's genetic.

https://twitter.com/eyeslasho/status/1725214282567033257

marcus says

i was explicitly taught in college that there are no races

I don't think colleges should be in the business of teaching this. But we know schools and colleges do do this.

Patrick says

Pretty much all marathon winners are Kenyan.
It's genetic.

I second. The nature of the heart and muscle characteristics are suitable to marathons.