Never mind, I don't really care, I'm just here because "come at me bro" and rhetoric is fun for me. I'll have the opportunity to join a debate club so I won't have to force that desire onto you guys who don't appreciate or desire it.

Also Wookie, I said I have a retirement account already. The problem is, your advice would fail on a large scheme because things have consequences. The type of synthetic thought "imagine if everything were the same but this one thing different" often fail. You can't have all of America dumping money in retirement accounts without massive changes to the economy

I have waited so long for this day.

Jon I made assumptions about your views and that was wrong. Obviously you would not defend the aforementioned actions. I'm posting again because I believe I can make better statements.


Your views seem to indicate, to some degree, a Rousseauian/Marxist interpretation of human nature. The wisdom therein is that, if people are given material equality, they will make good choices.


Christianity proposes a theory of human nature that is, by my reading, right wing. The flesh, your impulses, are sinful and only by the moral teachings of the bible does one make good choices.


I believe there is a tension here. I don't see you being likely to view theocracy as a good solution for government, and I don't see how your beliefs allow a materialist account. I'm not saying you don't have a more nuanced view, I'm bringing this up because I would like to hear it.


Back to my original point: I view the nature/nurture debate in 2015 to be a poor dichotomy and a misleading one. On the one hand, there truly is a large segment of young liberals who believe the entirety of the actions committed by black people at Ferguson were justified by the racism they face. They believe almost entirely that the nurture side is true, and with enough equality events like Ferguson would not happen.


The less extreme right wing view is to believe some form of Hobbesian human nature, or in the inherent qualities in an individual. At it's extreme this leads to racism.


It's an outdated and simple view to say that heritability is genetic. Genetics, or explicitly what's in the genetic code of individuals, I don't believe varies enough between humans to account for the disparities between the races. I also don't believe environment, as it's traditionally understood, does either.


An organism isn't simply genome and environment. An organism that gets involved in socially negative process, such as alcoholism, the epigenetics are influenced. It's confirmed that, as an organism begins growing in the womb, epigenomes are not entirely blank slates, they are heritable.


It's possible, and confirmed in some situations, that this process can thus occur: an organism develops a socially negative characteristic, such as alcoholism. This alcoholism effects the organisms epigenome in a way that makes that organism more susceptible to alcoholism. This trait is also inherited by the children, and the child is then predisposed to alcoholism. Heritability is not restrained to actual DNA.


It's possible that socially negative epigenomes may be more common in some races. Since these epigenomes can predict behavior, they may predict impulsivity and other traits linked to poor social outcomes. This would explain why adopted children often reflect IQ scores of their biological parents, and why twins so often develop similarly, even when exposed to different environments.


The problem then is, an organism with a bad genome, even when exposed to a good environment, may not interact with that good environment in a way that will influence it's epigenome in a socially positive way. Maybe the right wing insight is right: maybe simple economic equality will not produce fair outcomes. Maybe some family lineages actually are better, and traditions that have worked for centuries may have serious validity. Maybe traditionalism and conservatism aren't so bad, if they preserve an advantageous epigenome through a good environment and social practices.


What it also means is, simple economic equality may not work unless if it's implementation is well controlled. Maybe, the way to improve the lives of black people in America would also mean controlling what they eat and how they interact with their environment. Environment affects nature and nature affects environment.


I did mean my first point as sort of an assault on you, which I'm apologizing for, but I feel frustrated because it seems often that's the only way to encourage you to reply. I'm just curious to hear your insights.

I'm not saying you don't have a more nuanced view, I'm bringing this up because I would like to hear it.

I'm not saying you don't have a more nuanced view, I'm bringing this up because I would like to hear it.

Jon I made assumptions about your views and that was wrong. Obviously you would not defend the aforementioned actions. I'm posting again because I believe I can make better statements.


Your views seem to indicate, to some degree, a Rousseauian/Marxist interpretation of human nature. The wisdom therein is that, if people are given material equality, they will make good choices.

Christianity proposes a theory of human nature that is, by my reading, right wing. The flesh, your impulses, are sinful and only by the moral teachings of the bible does one make good choices.

Back to my original point: I view the nature/nurture debate in 2015 to be a poor dichotomy and a misleading one. On the one hand, there truly is a large segment of young liberals who believe the entirety of the actions committed by black people at Ferguson were justified by the racism they face. They believe almost entirely that the nurture side is true, and with enough equality events like Ferguson would not happen.

The less extreme right wing view is to believe some form of Hobbesian human nature, or in the inherent qualities in an individual. At it's extreme this leads to racism.


It's an outdated and simple view to say that heritability is genetic. Genetics, or explicitly what's in the genetic code of individuals, I don't believe varies enough between humans to account for the disparities between the races. I also don't believe environment, as it's traditionally understood, does either.


An organism isn't simply genome and environment. An organism that gets involved in socially negative process, such as alcoholism, the epigenetics are influenced. It's confirmed that, as an organism begins growing in the womb, epigenomes are not entirely blank slates, they are heritable.


It's possible, and confirmed in some situations, that this process can thus occur: an organism develops a socially negative characteristic, such as alcoholism. This alcoholism effects the organisms epigenome in a way that makes that organism more susceptible to alcoholism. This trait is also inherited by the children, and the child is then predisposed to alcoholism. Heritability is not restrained to actual DNA.


It's possible that socially negative epigenomes may be more common in some races. Since these epigenomes can predict behavior, they may predict impulsivity and other traits linked to poor social outcomes. This would explain why adopted children often reflect IQ scores of their biological parents, and why twins so often develop similarly, even when exposed to different environments.


The problem then is, an organism with a bad genome, even when exposed to a good environment, may not interact with that good environment in a way that will influence it's epigenome in a socially positive way. Maybe the right wing insight is right: maybe simple economic equality will not produce fair outcomes. Maybe some family lineages actually are better, and traditions that have worked for centuries may have serious validity. Maybe traditionalism and conservatism aren't so bad, if they preserve an advantageous epigenome through a good environment and social practices.


What it also means is, simple economic equality may not work unless if it's implementation is well controlled. Maybe, the way to improve the lives of black people in America would also mean controlling what they eat and how they interact with their environment. Environment affects nature and nature affects environment.


I did mean my first point as sort of an assault on you, which I'm apologizing for, but I feel frustrated because it seems often that's the only way to encourage you to reply. I'm just curious to hear your insights.

What it also means is, simple economic equality may not work unless if it's implementation is well controlled. Maybe, the way to improve the lives of black people in America would also mean controlling what they eat and how they interact with their environment. Environment affects nature and nature affects environment.

Also /pol/ is dominated by the paranoid and stupid.

Reid, surprisingly Al Sharpton's radio show hasn't been cancelled. I imagine it's not too hard to get through to him. I would love to hear your honest debate on this subject with him. Let us know if you get through.

Tell me now about how these guys are holding black people back, other than not having the decency to be martyred like their peers.

Oh, I love any time we can bring some Al Sharpton criticism into a discussion on race. Please tell me why he's the bad guy.

We'll add Jesse Jackson to the mix, too. Why not?

Tell me now about how these guys are holding black people back, other than not having the decency to be martyred like their peers.

Reid, surprisingly Al Sharpton's radio show hasn't been cancelled. I imagine it's not too hard to get through to him. I would love to hear your honest debate on this subject with him. Let us know if you get through.

You read way too much into that. Besides, Jackson doesn't have a call in show to my knowledge.

I'm eager to hear you tell me why you disagree with anything I facetiously mentioned there.

Remember how a few years ago Reid was this arrogant douche who had read some douchey stuff about women and showed up to tell all of us how women really work?