Utopia Talk / Politics / Gender ID Q

PhunkyPhishStyle Member	Sat Feb 23 10:06:00 Had this thought: If a female can identify as a male and have govt. and society legally recognize that identification... ....what would stop someone from identifying as a Native American (even though their genetic makeup in that regard says otherwise) and therefore a benefactor of various federal resources, scholarships, eagle feathers, etc? Works for any race, really, I just think the government would attempt to stomp out this idea fastest, due to their unique privileges.
PhunkyPhishStyle Member	Sat Feb 23 10:11:26 Also, RIP Hot Rod.
Pillz Member	Sat Feb 23 10:16:08 Can't dilute minorities in leftist dystopias.
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 11:54:59 Self definition doesn't mean the tribe recognises you as a member. https://www.doi.gov/tribes/enrollment
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 11:56:13 I'm sure you can self identify as a native American.
hood Member	Sat Feb 23 12:21:03 Gender != Sex. Race ~= sex, race !~ gender.
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 12:46:14 Hood: Race !~ sex. E.g. the child of parents of different races will be recognised as being of the race of either, neither or both depending on entirely arbitrary cultural norms.
hood Member	Sat Feb 23 13:28:32 My point was that race is a physical property much like sex. Gender is not a physical property. Hence the use of ~ instead of =.
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 15:47:45 Hood: And my point is that it's not a physical property, it's far more a cultural one. Race isn't based on genetics, genetic heritage clustering does not overlap race very well at all. Recent (as in the last hundred years or so) attempts to establish objective biological basis for race have largely foundered. The key distinguishing physical features of race have been (asside from cultural aspects) phenotypical measures controlled normally by a very few genes, so where populations have lived in close proximity, they have interbred to the extent there isn't a clear genetic boundary between races at all. E.g. Iberian peninsula. So the son of a white Hispanic woman that might have a father of North African heritage might well be considered just an unusually swarthy white person Brussels they are born of white woman and culturally are brought up Spanish. And his decedent's also. However, if widely known to be the son of the a North African, the reverse might be true. What matters is entirely driven by social construction. And then when people plod along with modern gene sequencing, generally they find the groups are so blurred at the edges (and always have been, races are not subspecies) that is hopeless trying to define a boundary of race on that basis. So largely, race is a social construct and is in many ways very similar to gender (though the issue in the first post is more akin to nationality). For example, while Elizabeth Warren can show she has some lineage to Native Americans, many rejected her claim to be one because she isn't acknowledged as a member of any tribe and lacks the *cultural* heritage that many of them consider a defining element of being one. Not to mention the complexities of say, being Jewish.
jergul large member	Sat Feb 23 15:47:59 I self-identify as an indigenous person? This is a complex issue that I doubt we can resolve in a satisfactory way. My feeling is that if you identify as and indigenous person, and that if you pay your dues (I'll leave that undefined), then it should give the basis for qualification (determined by whom is also something I will leave undefined). The main issue is that you are generally speaking of groups under stress, and who also generally are not free to define their own members. So you cannot hold them to the same standards as an unstressed majority population. Feel free to fall on these statements like a ton of bricks. Their only true merits are that they are true.
hood Member	Sat Feb 23 15:53:24 And seb goes off the deep end.
jergul large member	Sat Feb 23 15:56:39 Hood I am sad that I to have not gone off the deep end in your opinion.
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 16:36:13 Jergul: Agree. We shouldn't expect these things to be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive and provide a self consistent set of universal rules. It's far too messy. Let's take Elizabeth Warren. As someone who is overtly a (particularly powerful) member of a priveleged (racially) group and taken by that group to be a member, I can fully see that those who are recognised by the priveleged group as being native Americans, not afforded the priveleged status, it world be galling for them to have her self identify as such. Hence why I think in that case we are talking something akin to nationhood. You can self identify various things (including being of native American decent). But nationality is a collective identity - you need to be recognised as such by the collective. I can't self identify my way to a French passport unless the French decide as such. And in the American context, the basis for concessions to native Americans was in part to their status as absorbed Nations, rather than their ethnicity.
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 16:37:55 Hood: You are so... limited. And the sad part is you do it to yourself.
hood Member	Sat Feb 23 17:34:19 You are just talking about a different topic, doing your usual pontificating for no other reason than you enjoy the sound of your own voice (or whatever the digital equivalent is). I understand what you are saying. It isn't a difficult concept. It's just not the same topic as I spoke of.
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 17:57:19 Hood: What utter bullshit. You: Race ~= Sex Me: Race !~ Sex You: I mean race is a physical property, like Sex and unlike Gender. You must have clearly misunderstood the approximation sign! Me: Yes. I understood what the approximation sign means. I am explicitly saying that race is not a physical property, like sex, it is a social construct much like gender, but a collective one. You: You are talking about something completely different to what I was talking about. Ok, go on then hood, do tell me what it is you were talking about if not about whether race is an intrinsic objective quality or social construct?
Seb Member	Sat Feb 23 17:58:41 Actually, scrub that, I have no desire to converse with someone so utterly unable to engage in the slightest bit of introspection.
hood Member	Sat Feb 23 18:50:19 You blowharding about current attempts at defining race in a way that undermines racists is not really relevant to what I was saying. We already know the rabbit hole that social science leads to, and how awful it is by scientific standards. I would caution not to stack your chips there.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 04:29:05 "Race" is sociological category, not a biological (genetic) one. What you could do is make genetic testing and to a high degree of accuracy predict the geographic location of that person's genes by comparing with a global database. That geographic location overlaps quit well with our sociocultural definition of "race". So race is a physical property and it also isn't. I like the example of Turks. Turks speak turkish Their ancestors came from the Asian steppes and got Persianized as they filtered through Iran. Genetically they have virtually 0 connection to their turko-mongolian ancestors, they are "Anatolian" or whatever you want to call them. If you do genetic testing on Turks in the west of Turkey, you see they are indistinguishable from the Greeks. Much to their collective disappointment :) If you use "race" as rather blunt categories, then it works fine as a physical property, but as we go into details within a specific geographical location, especially the borders between "race", it all gets fuzzy and meaningless, because the overlap between sociocultural defined ethnicity and genetics is very poor. http://en..../File:Homo_sapiens_lineage.svg There were already archaic humans outside Africa when we left Africa. And humans fucked (probably raped) them, not just neanderthals. Likewise when the indo-europeans spread through Euro-asia, there were already stone age humans everywhere, they didn’t displace them genetically. And there are not a lot of signs of genetic displacement after the bronze age in the ME and Europe. So, the basis for these lineages (instead of race) is very old. That is a long winded way of saying, race as we know it should probably be thrown into the garbage and replaced with a modern genetic understanding of biological lineages. I reason here like I do with the sociocultural definition of “a human” (our abortion thread). Race even comes with baggage, but ultimately it is not very precise or robust and is subject to ideologically (or tribal) motivated tampering. It’s what you get when you rely on social science ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think seb and hood are talking past each other a bit, but: "if not about whether race is an intrinsic objective quality or social construct?" It isn't an either or thing. Social constructs can (I would argue most of them are) be based on observable intrinsic (or other natural) qualities, that we have assessed poorly due to limitation in knowledge or tools, but they are "sorta true". Sub-saharan africans are another "race" than Europeans. Asians are not another than Amero-indians. These things are observable to the ordinary human eye and compounded by cultural and linguistic differences.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 04:35:13 Asian are* another
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 04:54:46 Nimi You are wrong to try and pin race on social sciences. Its widest application was in the field of genetics. Here is the current consensus view: "The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races" Originally, race was simply used in the way we use nationality today (the English race for example). Then it became a genetic theory that was eventually discarded as differences between groups are obviously mostly cultural. It was used in a cultural sense for a short time before being replaced by the term ethnicity.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 07:37:43 I said race is a sociological category, not a biological one. And while biology and genetics tried it, as you mention it was discarded, but not in social science. In social science it still very much a center piece, try as they may have to rescue it, it will always be weighed down by the baggage and it having some correlation with biology.
hood Member	Sun Feb 24 07:52:49 "Originally, race was simply used in the way we use nationality today (the English race for example)." Yes, and it is still widely used as such (at least in the US, since we all hail from elsewhere). It is still legally recognized (see: census). "I think seb and hood are talking past each other a bit" That would require me to do more conversing. But yes, Seb is just doing his normal thing of talking to hear his own voice without any attempt to actually engage in what the other person is saying.
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 09:09:47 Nimi It is if anything a category census uses to allow people to self-identify as Klingon or any other race they may feel like being. Here is the current consensus view: "The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races" You are making a straw man argument in other words.
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 09:11:37 (thanks hood)
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 09:47:13 >>"Race" is sociological category<< >>It is if anything a category census uses<< Shocking. There is obviously no historical connection between census and sociologically defined categories, to you know categorize people according to type. Who do you thinks sits on the US census national advisory committee for racial and ethnic, besides a bunch of reps from racial/ethnic special interest groups? Sociology professors. Strawmen, or is it the jergul we know, always wanting to speak where he hasn’t done his homework?
Sam Adams Member	Sun Feb 24 09:55:26 "what would stop someone from identifying as a Native American" Getting humiliated in public if you ever become a senator from Massachusetts? Lol! Also here comes that retard seb to argue that genes are fake again.
Sam Adams Member	Sun Feb 24 10:04:33 You cant define race!!! Rofl dumbseb
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 10:14:34 Ok due diligence is in place, not single sociology professor specifically. But lets go through all the social science people Ph.D's http://www2.census.gov/cac/nac/nac-full-membership.pdf Dr. Randall Akee Assistant Professor Department of Public Policy Dr. Julie Dowling Department of Latina/Latino Studies Dr. Inderdeep Chatrath Assistant Vice President Office for Institutional Equity Dr. Taeku Lee Professor of Political Science and Law Dr. Yolande P. Marlow Executive Director, Supreme Court Committee on Minority Concerns (SCCMC) Dr. Stuart Michaels Senior Researcher National Opinion Research Center ^(quantitative sociology) Dr. Ann Morning Department of Sociology New York University Ms. Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear Northern Cheyenne Nation, Montana Dual PhD Candidate School of Sociology, University of Arizona National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis Dr. Lily Anne Welty Tamai Lecturer University of California Los Angeles Department of Asian American Studies This last one did her PhD in Health Services, with an emphasis in Public Health Informatics and Public Health Genetics from the University of Washington. Dr. Maile Taualii Assistant Professor of Public Health John A. Burns School of Medicine, University
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 11:05:42 Nimi The historical connection between the census classification would be from when race was a meant to apply for genetically distinct groups. Listing a bunch of doctors proves somehow that Race as a classification system is used systematically in the social sciences?
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 11:08:24 Again, Here is the current consensus view: "The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races" Just find a few social scientists who have developed theories that attempt to determine the existence of separate human races. Then you might possibly have a point.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 12:11:51 Sociologically (sociocultural) defined races are in line with the EU, not that the EU in any way is a consensus. This is rocket science jergul, sociology defines races and ethnicities as social constructs, thus they can not be ”seperate human races”. How far do you want to digg this grave?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 24 12:12:40 isn’t* rocket science.
hood Member	Sun Feb 24 13:49:27 One should note that sociologists defining things tangential to their field is not necessarily the most authoritative of evidence.
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 13:54:43 Nimi So what you are saying is that when people say there are races, then sociology says: "look, people are trying to categorize people into groups based on physical characteristics. What nice social construct those people have created". Fair enough.
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 13:57:37 Hood Sociologists looking at how people categorize stuff is not exactly tangential to their field.
jergul large member	Sun Feb 24 14:00:46 Nimi The issues I had here is that I had trouble understanding what you were trying to say. I thought you meant that race had important agency in the field of sociology (or any other social science). I totally agree that sociology is interested in how people categorize, but that would be a completely different matter.
McKobb Member	Sun Feb 24 14:55:45 That's all bullshit. Gender is a hijacked term that until the last few decades was identical to sex in every context.
Seb Member	Sun Feb 24 16:10:06 Hood: The "thing that undermines racists" is literally the obverse of what you hold to be true, and while it happens to undermine racists, it does that by virtue of *being true*. So frankly I'm confused why you think it is irrelevant given it flat out contradicts your point. But whatever. Continue being obtuse.
Seb Member	Sun Feb 24 16:27:33 Nim: "hat you could do is make genetic testing and to a high degree of accuracy predict the geographic location of that person's genes by comparing with a global database." That only really works with mitochondrial DNA. The edges are too fuzzy. I mean look how many races are in the geographical area spanning the Greeks, caucuses down to North West turkey. "race as we know it should probably be thrown into the garbage and replaced with a modern genetic understanding of biological lineages." I agree with the first part - but why bother replacing it with anything? Modern genetic understanding of biological lineages is what it is, doesn't usefully or reliably inform about an individual and doesn't need to be loaded up with any sociological value. "Sub-saharan africans are another "race" than Europeans" Except Sub Saharan African's don't consider themselves a single race for a start, and neither do Europeans (Hutu's and Tutsi's being a great example). And Europeans haven't historically considered themselves a single race (Slavs, Hispanics etc.). As jergul said races were near synonymous with nationality/more granular ethnicity - languages, culture etc. which really are more meaningful. The more modern concepts of race come from the (failed) attempt to approach race as a taxonomy in the 18th and 19th century as though Homo Sapiens had sub-species, and this accounts (as Sam believes) difference in culture and behavior. The reason it's so broken as a concept is because it is fundamentally incorrect hypothesis - and to try and rescue it by aggregating up to continental levels you are right: you are just talking vague geography and a few very specific prototypical features with almost nothing else meaningfully inferable. I'd just say, why bother: let genetics be genetics - and lets not try another failed attempt to re-structure anthropology and sociology around frameworks imported from biology. We already know it doesn't work very well.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 25 01:31:08 Jergul Sociology, all social science classify races and ethnicities as social constructe. They observe what people do in this regard and analyze, there are harying degrees of rigor in the field, some of them are conservative in what they accept, others not so much. Case in point, in 2015 this census committee had a meeting to discuss new racial and ethnic categories, there was an effort by some interest groups to add MENA as a category (they count as caucasian). This proposal was rejected. Seb We can trace paternal lineage as well. Why bother? I am not sure I understand the question. It is there for one, biological lineages are a thing and they are obviously interesting to explain our evolutionary past and history. I am not proposing society replace race with lineage, I know that these types of categories can be used (will be used) by some to market their tribalism, it may even replace one type of tribalism with another. It can’t be stopped, I mean racist gonna racist, they did it based on religion, skin color, bad science. Prior to out of Africa they had some ideas, and when that fact was established, they changed to something else. Limiting what we should study because of this, I could never defend it to myself.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 25 05:18:42 Nim: Not in a way that's good for really pinning a group down in ways that someone without access to the genetic data itself would find useful. Looking at our evolutionary past is interesting - that's what I meant by "is what it is" - but thats not what I would call *replacing* race, which was an attempt to organise and structure society and ethnography based on an assumption that humanity must have a taxonomy similar to that of the species, and that the characteristics of race must inform much about the character and qualities of its members. It's not just that this concept can be "weaponised", it's that it doesn't accurately describe the relationship between genes, individuals and groups in the way that proponents have in mind.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 25 05:41:03 Nimi You are making it sound so ominous. Social sciences observe people categorizing stuff. "this census committee had a meeting to discuss new racial and ethnic categories, there was an effort by some interest groups to add MENA as a category (they count as caucasian). This proposal was rejected." A good example of a sociological observation. Do you have any issues with how you observed the census committee categorizing stuff? You were the one doing sociology, not the committee.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 25 09:12:50 seb This is all based on Y-chromosomes. http://en....as_en_haplogrupos_de_ADN-Y.PNG The entire tracing of indo-europeans migrations in Euro-asian, is based on Y-DNA. I am not sure where you want to take this. Tracing paternal lineage through Y-Chromosomes is used extensively, in all the popular DNA testing services and in genetic studies to study human migrations and spread of genes, since (young) men were often the ones who moved about the world the most, spreading their seeds or what not. This is how we know X% of central asian men are descendants of 1 Mongolian man, 50% of the European men are descendants of 4-5 men etc. The addition of Y-Chromosomes to the genetic toolbox has provided quite a lot of information and insights. >>would call *replacing* race, which was an attempt to organise and structure society and ethnography<< Ok I see, I don't think “society” i.e government/state should replace (or that we should organize our society) the current racial and ethnic categories with a new one based on biology. It (the state, like the US census for instance) should just do away with the ones it currently has, for previously mentioned reasons. When I mentioned replacing, I said “we”, I meant this as our collective understanding of “race”, the knowledge, the science, those who nerd and are interested in these things. It is interesting the way science is interesting and can provide meaningful insights, to who we are, why we are the way we are and how we can transcend those limitations. Self-identified or biological, I don't think it is a good idea for the state to group people into racial and ethnic categories at all. It can be weaponized, it provided fertile grounds for special interest groups and special interest rights. I think we agree on that. Jergul >>You are making it sound so ominous<<. Only you can explain why. Well, I guess to the degree that these things are misused, it qualifies as “ominous”. >>Social sciences observe people categorizing stuff.<< In many ways they (social sciences) perpetuate and validate these arbitrary and half-baked concepts with even more half baked theories. In my opinion, people and groups can be as tribalistic and racist as they damn please, but the state should not encourage it.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 25 09:29:50 Nimi The idea that observation "perpetuates and validates" what is being observed is of course a theory from social sciences (not to be mistaken for quantum superposition which correctly relates to physics). Are you saying that science should not observe things we might find undesirable because how observation might impact? A census would be a case in point. The State would be observing how people group themselves (though at a meta level, you could observe how the state designs category alternative).
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 25 10:03:37 That is another and longer discussion, which I don't intend to have. I said that "race" is a sociological category, it is. The example from 2015 was in response to the "oh so sociologist just observe and go, look how interesting these people categorize themselves". They have ideas about what is and isn't a "race", they vary in how they assess the observations etc. like other fields.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 25 10:16:43 Nim: Bit of a bait and switch no? Previously we were talking about defining groups of people now based on the similarity of their genes - and the precision that can give you on geographic range. Your point - it seemed - being that genetic clusters though maybe don't sign to ethnographic definitions of races do allow you to pin people down to having come from a particular region. My point being that these were so fuzzy as to be fairly pointless. E.g. "this person comes from a group whose members have for the last thousands of years been mostly hanging around the east Mediterranean, agean and black sea". This may (or may not) correlate with traditional definitions of race which are also geospatially correlated (though increasingly less so) - both being propogated by people living in proximity to each other. You appeared to be suggesting we create new races aligned to these geospatial clustering. E.g. "European", "Sub Saharan African" etc. I was saying that aggregation to this level is pointless as it doesn't correlate with anything other than itself. It tells you nothing useful other than about the genetic heritage and is so fuzzy that even geographically it's crap compared to mitochondrial DNA which is far more precise. Now, the thing you just posted is using a few SNA genetic markers and making assumptions about the rate of changes to put them in order and work backwards. In these cases, the geographic prosition of the samples is fixed (what does the profile of people in this place have now), the age of the SNA inferred via assumption of mutation frequency and the assumptio is that the propogation of SNAs over space is via population movement (advection in physics talk) rather than say, everyone interbreeding with their immediate neighbors over a longer period of time (diffusion in physics terms). Which on a continental scale in historical periods is a pretty good bet. But what that doesn't tell you to a great degree is whether the people are of the same "racial" group. Hence despite all of this arguments back and forth as to whether these movements of SNAs indicate interbreeding, or displacement. That's a very different thing to what we are talking about.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 25 10:22:51 "Ok I see, I don't think “society” i.e government/state should replace (or that we should organize our society) the current racial and ethnic categories with a new one based on biology. It (the state, like the US census for instance) should just do away with the ones it currently has, for previously mentioned reasons.". On that we agree. But I was also meaning in the sciences rather than public policy. The "thing" that racial categorisation was invented to do in terms of organising our understanding of people doesn't work. Species are not a good model for the sub categories of humans. Genetic heritage is useful (e.g. for working out say, historic migration patterns) but doesn't have the same utility within say, anthropology, that "race" was supposed to have. Let genetics and it's studies be it's own thing basically (which I think we agree on). "I think we agree on that" We do.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 25 10:56:02 Nimi You should avoid taking ominous sounding positions you cannot or will not defend. Social constructs are phenomena observed by social sciences. Observation being a key part of science. Just as analysis and interpretation also are. Frankly, the more I discuss with you, the more I realize your positions are generally based on sometimes novel takes on social scientific theory, but are inevitably in the domain of social sciences. You heavy reliance on social theory to critique social sciences a case in point.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 25 11:10:54 Seb The study of lineages without group classifications quickly moves back towards social sciences in any event. Applied genetics would quickly fall into a subsection of genealogy.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 25 11:26:15 Maybe. But it is at least an objective thing in its own right. What it doesn't necessarily correlate with is any of the baggage bound up in anthropology etc. Might be quite useful for genetics, but to be honest we will quickly get to the point where individual level data of both characteristics and genes makes it kind of pointless.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 25 12:04:20 I am beginning to suspect that family history x will be needed to explain why genes sometimes express in one way, and other times another. At least in regards to well-being. The chance category in genes-environment-luck remains over dimensioned.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 06:37:41 Seb You questioned what could be done with Y-DNA , I responded with what can be done, it is as useful as mtDNA and used at the same frequency in these fields. Linking was just the evidence for what I view as a technical disagreement. Some where I said race as we use it, it is ”sorta true”, africans (subsaharan) are a different race than europeans. But what is a race? Once we get more technical and into details the entire thing falls apart. The other question is sociological, or social categories like race. We agree, it serves little purpose, and are pretty much indefensible scientifically. The state and goverment should not be involved in this or replace it with something else. The third is the usage of biological terms like ”populations” which best corespondes to ”Race” and ”lineage” which is a higher order word of the same phenomena. These are perfectly valid and real things, used to study population ancestry, migration and evolution. Populations and lineages are nothing like the historical definition or modern definition of ”race”. There is no ”one drop” rule in the biological understanding of a population. There are no clear bounderies between populations and this extends to species, there was no ”first human” and ”first chimp”, but you can trace back to a common ancestor. All of that has a place in biology, it has insights for medicine and our own history, but the terms have has to be used with care (they come with a bunch of ? and *), most people have a shitty understanding of biology and evolution! Having said that, people (the previously mentioned ones) will still look into these things and look to validate tribal and racial supremacy. Visit some forums and you will find people who say things like ”so and so group have low IQ... they have a lot of denisovan DNA” (there is absolutly nothing to support this ”theory”). Yet it says something, that this kind of thinking wont stop. Everyone is interested in science, when it is on ”their side”.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 07:02:09 "The state and goverment should not be involved in this or replace it with something else" So your position is that science should no longer observe how people self-identify. There is a name for the field you are suggesting. It is called Genealogy.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 07:11:26 The position is defensible btw. Social scientific theory (old theory at that - anthropology is clearest on it) is very clear on the act of observation changing what is being observed. But recognized that fuzzy science supports not observing. Hard science does not. Geneology (once better grounded in science) would represent a multi-disciplinary approach primarily in the field of social sciences. In sum. You should lay off the kewl kid disrespect of scientific fields that you strongly need to support your views.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 07:15:22 "Populations" can be anything you want btw. It depends on how you define it. The term is helpful when designing a study because it allows for setting boundaries in a manner most conductive to examining the task at hand. The one-eyed, left-handed, transgender midget population of central London? Defined! Lets study that.
McKobb Member	Tue Feb 26 07:46:13 Don't talk about TC like that!
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 07:51:00 >>You should avoid taking ominous sounding positions you cannot or will not defend.<< ”Only you can explain why. Well, I guess to the degree that these things are misused, it qualifies as “ominous”.” As in, it’s in your head and I don’t defend things because you feel something. Now guess why I won’t get into something longer discussion with you. Because you don’t read bro, you have a feeling and when people have bad feelings, experience and social science tells me it is very difficult to change their minds. I don’t care one way or another to change your emotional state.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 08:01:22 >>but are inevitably in the domain of social sciences.<< If you are studying the phenomena of the social human animal, how could it not be? My criticism towards social science have always been in line with making it better, or as I have said on multiple occasions, we need a new social science - a social science that divorces human behavior from the evolutionary past and biological reality will not give any meaningful insights and ditto for the reverse. This wasn’t always the case sociobiology was a thing, I guess it still is, but the fields are dominated by social constructivist theory. The atonishing thing is that you say ”the more I read I realize”, when I have explictly stated these things several times in the past.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 08:14:19 >>So your position is that science should no longer observe how people self-identify.<< State. You are not even trying. The state invites sociologist to provide some sort of scientific validity to the racial and ethnic categories they decide are ”real”. It isn’t as whimsical as people self identify we observe them and that is that, which is what you seem to think. If that was the case, it would be a free for all and it lose whatever little meaning they have. Hi I am jergul I self-identify as a klingon! What social scientist decide to do, and what it is wrong and where I disagree, is a longer topic I have no interest in discussing, but inadvertely touched on with my previous post.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 08:56:56 Nimi Your position is then that state sponsored science should no longer observe how people self-identify. "State" as you use it sounds rather ominous, But I take it that you meant various government agencies that may have varied degrees of interest in observing how people self-identify, and would use employees with proper qualifications to observe whatever data on the subject that might have been collected. We would tend to call such employees researchers engaged in science. But I can clarify: So your position is that researchers engaged in science should no longer observe how people self-identify? And your position is now also that social sciences have highly useful theories and methods that robustly expand human knowledge?
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 09:12:29 Nimi People certainly do self-identify as belonging to far more races and ethnicities than Census categories cover. Klingon might be one - and lets not even consider cosplay and furry communities. But you should be able to see that people self-identifying as furries would come long before furry would enter as an option on any census list.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 09:17:58 Jergul Your position is then that the state should decide which racial categories are accepted based on psuedo science they sponsor?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 09:25:56 The US census recognizes 5 racial categories, no klingons.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 09:31:00 Nimi Ouch. That sure sounds ominous when you write it out like that. My position would be that observing self-identity in too nuanced detail would be fraught with ethical issues (data collected for statistical purposes should not allow for the identification of individuals) and would generally not be scientifically interesting (a basket "other" category to cover outliers would be fine). But categorization should certainly be quantitatively driven. If enough people self-identify as something, then that self-identification warrants categorization.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 09:36:47 Klingon would fall under "some other race" if a person more strongly self-identified as Klingon instead of one of the other 6 alternatives.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 26 11:05:34 Defend the ominous position that you have expressed. You have the attention span of a border collie, which is good for a dog, but not a for human being. So, let me explain. The OP is about ID cards, and it touches upon the various resources one is eligible to provided the state accept that category you identify as a valid category. Sociological categories, that ones the census or perhaps some other state institutions decides over. Categories that are not simply self-identified, but how society and institutions identify and recognize you. Categories that come with historical baggage and that allegedly are intrinsic in nature, but that biology and genetics (the fields that study intrinsic human properties) discarded. How people identify and how social science decides to study this phenomena is largely irrelevant to the point that the state shouldn’t be engaging in this kind of BS to begin with. It is only relevant to the extent that these fields join these committees and give these categories scientific validity, the way that institutions seeks them. If it was as simple as you think it is ”hispanic” would be a racial category, not an ethnicity (cultural). But it isn’t, again insinuating there is a intrinsic biological element to race, that we have discussed, biology and genetics discarded. Now I understand there is a deal of self serving interest for you, since you belong to such a designated special interest group with special rights. So, we can dismiss what you say as partial and the result of conflict of interest. You are dismissed.
jergul large member	Tue Feb 26 11:57:47 Nimi The trouble here is keeping you on track. So you are now fine with US census observing how people self-identify, but now have issues with other branches of government that may use racial and ethnical identities for nefarious purposes. But you accept the term "population" that easily could be used as a surrogate, so it boils down to semantics really. With an element of straw men as the social sciences do not believe the term race is anything other than a social construct that groups and individual agree on. You are uncomfortable with the use of the word "race" because of its historical connotations. The OP has already been dealt with. A group has an inherent right to define who belongs to it. A group is free to reach any agreement it can with the State, just as the State is free to enter such agreements (subject to legislation and treaties).
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