#BLM

Out of context: Reply #446

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  • drgs0

    So why are people racists?

    Desegregation of the 1950s was based on the premise that racism was a consequence of lack of culture and poor education. However, the luminaries of behavioral biology have established that racism has nothing to do with upbringing, IQ or education.

    By and large racism has no more convictions or conscious choice than for example homosexuality. It's just that there is a biological mechanism fixed by evolution: when you see a stranger, be alert, who knows what he has on his mind.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/…
    In the brain it is the amygdala which is responsible for recognizing friend or foe. Those with less developed amygdala will only get a minor sense of discomfort at the sight of a stranger, and those who who have overdeveloped amygdala are "literally shaking". There is also the prefrontal cortex which moderates the amygdala, which is basically what I described in my previous post (controlling the sinful urges), and those with sloppy prefrontal cortices are consequently more racist, so maybe IQ does have a play in this, but not directly.

    Interestingly, the bonding hormone oxytocin can also make you racist (not by making you more hostile towards POCs directly, but by making you favor your own kin more, I think married men with children tend to be more racist)
    https://time.com/49399/oxytocin-…

    Bad news is amygdala fears are at firmware level together with spiders and reptilians. Good news is it can be patched. There was a study done on American recruits, which I cannot find, which showed that recruits who served together with POCs were void of racist attitudes than those who served in white-only squads.
    Basically, like with any irrational fears, which are either installed by default or imprinted in childhood, phobias can be overcome/whitelisted by exposure.
    Tl;dr: racism is not learned -- it must be unlearned. This problem is especially difficult because it requires you to overcome the stubborn nature of your biology, which lags 10000 years behind where the society is today.

    Hence the notorious school busing. A good idea in principle -- to mix children when they are still young, before the stereotypes are set for life, but difficult to execute. All this is complicated.

    This is also why I keep nagging about segregated student dorms, the most murderous phenomenon possible today and orthogonality opposite of what Americans should be doing. In two generations from now you will have more racism than during slavery.

    Discuss

    drgs 0Permalink
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    • Discuss!pango
    • We go full debate on this onedrgs
    • Them's a lot of words for "Most humans are tribalist, until they're not".Nairn
    • As you all know, the loudest homophobes are latent homosexuals, who suppress their sexuality.
      Similarly, I have a theory that individuals      drgs
    • with unpatched amygdala, who are controling their racist urges with raw willpower (=prefrontal cortex), have the greatest feeling of guiltdrgs
    • and therefore a greater need to seem as anti-racist. They are also the loudest, most mouthfoaming fighters of racism.drgs
    • It goes both ways, sort of the opposite of this: https://nymag.com/in…drgs
    • Whenever there is a conflict between amygdala and prefrontal cortex there is neuroticism -- BLM for short.drgs
    • Just kidding, but seriously, if the BLM movement is mainly guilt-driven, its bad news, because it will eventually culminate in some form of sadistic fascism.drgs
    • the amygdala controls all emotional responses saying it can be 'patched' is like saying you can end racism by turning off the TVkingsteven
    • Get yourself black friends and spend time with them, that's all. Most people in urban areas have been through that and are "vaccinated"drgs
    • which is why your last assumption is so off... you can unlearn racism, but it has nothing to do with stimulation of the amygdala.kingsteven
    • But its worse if you grew up in some rural predominately white areadrgs
    • in a general sense control of amygdala = emotional maturity.kingsteven
    • https://www.reddit.c…drgs
    • i fully endorse meditation as a method to reduce racism and general reactionary fuckery in the world.kingsteven
    • and hard drugskingsteven
    • I enjoy reading these contrarian takes but have you considered possibility that the side that wants to build a giant wall to keep the scary foreigners out mightyuekit
    • be the ones with "overdeveloped amygdala"?yuekit
    • I think there is even science backing this up actually...yuekit
    • https://www.ncbi.nlm…yuekit
    • https://qz.com/12389…yuekit
    • They have the biggest, veiniest amygdalas, throbbing with justice!drgs
    • "greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala"yuekit
    • So yeah you're onto something here but unfortunately it shakes out exactly the way you'd expect.yuekit
    • "the size of the bilateral amygdala, which governs emotions, survival instincts, and memory, was strongly correlated with support for the existing social order"drgs
    • Nairn, what drugs suppress amygdala?
      https://clinicaltria…
      "MDMA will increase mPFC, but decrease amygdala"      drgs
    • that was me ha:
      https://www.ncbi.nlm…      kingsteven
    • Lololol at “I have a theory”nb
    • Just thought of a great analogy. All children are born as fussy eaters. With age they learn what foods they like/are ok to eat.drgs
    • This is an universal evolutionary strategy: You are born with "Deny from all" and gradually you whitelist things which are safe.drgs
    • Not the other way around (accept all and gradually blacklist things which are bad).
      From evolutionary perspective the first strategy was better.      drgs
    • Same with people who seem strange or new.drgs
    • Amygdala is the .htaccessdrgs
    • You're now conflating the amygdala with the entire function of the brain.kingsteven
    • All children aren't born as fussy eaters though.fadein11
    • Don't show them where you keep Tide podsdrgs
    • "the loudest homophobes are latent homosexuals",
      true.      i_was
    • hey drgs, your analogy about fussy eating children is the biggest load of ignorant bullshit I've read today, congratsmonospaced
    • it implies people are racist by nature, which if you have children, you know is absolute bullshit ... racism is 100% taughtmonospaced
    • It's NOT an evolutionary strategy. You just made that up.monospaced
    • https://www.parents.…drgs
    • https://www.utoronto…drgs
    • "Lee, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, says that lack of exposure to other races may be the cause."drgs
    • The fuck did we just discussed for 40 subnotes?drgs
    • actually the subnotes are mostly you and people telling you you're wrong. this was all discussed in depth when obama said "children are not born racist" yearskingsteven
    • ago, the idea of race bias in babies is well known but it has no connection to racism as adults (other than to say we naturally fear what we don't know)kingsteven
    • yes, and my message about "whitelisting" the unknown somehow got lost in the discussion?drgs
    • We are not discussing how we want things to be. Do you agree or disagree with me -- has nada effect on how amygdalas work. All we can do it to understanddrgs
    • Nature is indifferent to our sentimental snot chewing, what is racist, politically incorrect, and how we wished things should have been instead.drgs
    • I wish the same things as you do, the only difference is that I understand that there is no one to care about these wishesdrgs
    • BLM is raw human nature turned inside out, which we cannot control one tiniest bit, only observe from distancedrgs
    • Like rectal prolapsedrgs
    • I stopped reading at the end of the first paragraph. Did a white man write this?Maaku
    • You do realise your theory is embraced by BLM too? race is more than the colour of skin, it's a social construct that is learned.kingsteven
    • the amygdala is interconnected to every part of the brain, it coordinates all emotional responses, it does not act independentlykingsteven
    • the analogy of flavours is only relevant because children don't even have fully developed taste buds until they are 6 months +kingsteven
    • babies do not require salt, so they aren't born with that facility. it's the same with the amygdala - beyond what is evolutionarily required to survive requireskingsteven
    • reason - and this is why kids should be exposed to kids of other races. but it requires a lot of enforcement of race bias to make a racist.kingsteven
    • my niece ate olives until she turned 6, started school and found out her friends don't like them. racism is not so simple :Dkingsteven
    • Amygdala is a bit more high-functioning than just flavors: its more about what type of berries will poison you and which will not.drgs
    • It is more evolutionary advantageous to be a skeptic by default, and only put things in your mouth if your parents say its ok.drgs
    • This was relevant 100 000 years ago, now not so much, but the stubborn flesh will make sure this continues to work for thousands of years to comedrgs
    • Similarly with neighboring tribes. Some are friendly, some are at war with you. By default skepticism makes sure that you survive.drgs
    • Again an atavism, not relevant, so its your job as a parent to teach the kids to whitelist all other races/phenotypes.drgs
    • I disagree that babies are “born racist”. “Estimating the threat level of a new person” is being incorrectly bandied about as interchangeable with “racism” herescarabin
    • I do agree that time spent with other races may dissolve racist impulses but toddlers don’t give a flying fuck about the color of each other’s skinscarabin
    • That shit is learned behavior from the family and people it’s raised aroundscarabin
    • Drgs is saying he's racist and he can't help it.pango
    • To a baby everything is ALREADY whitelisted and threats require blacklisting. Just look at all the crap they put in their mouths to investigatescarabin
    • Racism is learnedscarabin
    • If you start eating every random shit that grows on the ground (in nature, not your kitchen), you will be dead within the first day. This is self-explanatory.drgs
    • Correct. That’s what parents are for. To teach them what’s dangerous. In the wild as well as with humansscarabin
    • Also i never said babies EAT everything, just that they put it in their mouths to investigate because they don’t know better yet. It’s still whitelisted to themscarabin
    • If a baby was born with everything blacklisted it would hate everyone and everything and that’s just not the casescarabin
    • And nothing would go in their mouths because everything is a threatscarabin
    • First article in google http://www.bbc.com/e…drgs
    • Scarabin, you're describing the world as you want it to be, not how it is.
      https://www.newscien…      drgs
    • I’m not even talking about food, i’m talking about investigation. Picking up sharp things, touching ovensscarabin
    • This article says food neophobia kicks in around 2nd or 3rd birthdays and i would argue that they have developed eating preferences by thenscarabin
    • Drgs, The kids in that study were aged 5 to 17. PLENTY of time to learn racial bias.scarabin
    • So, if I was to attack the problem at it's root -- how is racial bias learned?drgs
    • I think you’re right that exposure is critical, growing up ONLY around people of a certain type creates a preference toward that typescarabin
    • Those things become what’s “normal”. I just mainly disagree about the baby thing. I think it happens a bit laterscarabin
    • And more subtly than some might suspectscarabin
    • Anyway, I will agree to the following:
      1) both whitelisting and blacklisting is possible      drgs
    • 2) there is some level of initial fear, which is lower than if a subject is blacklisted, and higher than if whitelisteddrgs
    • I absolutely agree that segregated dorms will only reinforce biasesscarabin
    • Thank you scarabin.monospaced
    • All people are racist at firmware level
      https://www.youtube.…      drgs
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