Quote from: Zelen on December 04, 2022, 01:23:56 PM
Can someone point me where the PHB references real-world races like French, English, Egyptian, Chinese, Aborigine, Bantu, Khoisan, or any other real-world race?

Theres werewolves from France in Mystara and Gypsies from wherever in Greyhawk.
Theres been bithing about both before and the various non-white races populating Greyhawk. Because of course fantasy races are really real real world races!

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 04, 2022, 10:52:55 PM
Only if you can tell us how the French and English became races.

By intra-breeding more than inter-breeding. A 'race' is just a common lineage.

Quote from: Zelen on December 04, 2022, 01:23:56 PM
Can someone point me where the PHB references real-world races like French, English, Egyptian, Chinese, Aborigine, Bantu, Khoisan, or any other real-world race?

Well, it mentions Orcs. You know, black people. 

Ba-dum-tss.mp3

These claims of "biological essentialism" are complete nonsense. Every human being is different and some have advantages over others because they won the genetic lottery, in addition to just growing up in favorable circumstances. Acknowledging that is not racism or sexism or any other -ism. What is prejudiced is legislating that people be treated as subhuman for these differences. No credible study has shown measurable difference in average intelligence across the races and sexes that cannot be accounted for purely by upbringing. For example, Asian people aren't genetically predisposed towards being smarter than any other human population: they grow up in cultures that prize education.

Once we bring in Tolkienesque races then all our science goes out the window. The differences between them are much greater than those between humans, and our understanding of it is purely theoretical since we don't have aliens or non-human intelligences to study. Even the smartest animals on Earth have yet to master fire.

In Tolkien's work the elves, humans and orcs aren't even different species technically speaking. They can interbreed to produce fertile offspring (it's not known precisely how orcs reproduce after all of Morgoth's genetic modifications, but we do know they have children that are born defenseless and require time to mature), altho in the case of half-elves they have to choose between being immortal or being mortal.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 05, 2022, 09:14:49 AM
...altho in the case of half-elves they have to choose between being immortal or being mortal.

It's a bit more complicated than just that.

Of the handful of elf/human pairings we know about, only two have ever chosen mortality: Elros and Arwen. It seems that half-elves are immortal (and indistinguishable from elves) by default, but have the option to forsake their immortality and accept the Gift of Man. Most, by all accounts, choose not to.

In addition, the children of Elros, who we might also consider "half-elf", don't seem capable of reversing the decision and become immortal. That was the whole dispute with Ar-Pharazon and the King's Men: they wanted immortality.

little Danny Kwan saves the day... again.

I agree on the sentiment of the video, I do not agree with attacking the left because of this - well, I'm European, maybe being left means something different here. I consider myself to be politically left-leaning, so according to the video, I should agree with all this woke nonsense. I don't. It got me kicked off their facebook page and their twitter, and still I won't take a single word back from what I said. It's woke that is the problem - or, I should say, woke that's gotten out of control that is the problem. I'm all for equality for all regardless of skin colour, I'm against affirmative action or positive discrimination or whatever it is called these days. If I as a white heterosexual male were truly privileged, I wouldn't (quite literally) have been working the skin off my hands since I was nineteen, while coloured people (and rightfully so, bully for them) can attend college. Just my two cents on this.

TL;DR: not the left but woke is the problem

The fire warms my heart and makes for a fine Christmas cheer. Thank you, blue-hairs. Everyone got what they deserved.

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on December 08, 2022, 04:56:03 AM
I agree on the sentiment of the video, I do not agree with attacking the left because of this - well, I'm European, maybe being left means something different here. I consider myself to be politically left-leaning, so according to the video, I should agree with all this woke nonsense. I don't. It got me kicked off their facebook page and their twitter, and still I won't take a single word back from what I said. It's woke that is the problem - or, I should say, woke that's gotten out of control that is the problem. I'm all for equality for all regardless of skin colour, I'm against affirmative action or positive discrimination or whatever it is called these days. If I as a white heterosexual male were truly privileged, I wouldn't (quite literally) have been working the skin off my hands since I was nineteen, while coloured people (and rightfully so, bully for them) can attend college. Just my two cents on this.

TL;DR: not the left but woke is the problem

heads up, 'coloured people' isn't proper anymore. you can use people of color but that's a terrible term imo. i suggest you use non whites in the future. i know you're not racist but you slipped up there.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on December 08, 2022, 02:49:02 PM


heads up, 'coloured people' isn't proper anymore. you can use people of color but that's a terrible term imo. i suggest you use non whites in the future. i know you're not racist but you slipped up there.

I will, of course, take it to heart.

That I think illustrates the difference; most of my friends are left-leaning politically but they're still my friends and we can have a conversation, because they won't start shrieking that I'm a nazi bigot if I said 'coloured person' and start calling up my employer to get me fired.  I think it was Christina Sommers who coined the phrase 'grievance feminists' to describe an activist who, in addition to holding their particular beliefs, also had a huge chip on their shoulders and went out of their way to screw over people whom they disagreed with.  That's pretty much the woke right there, and why their existence irks me.

I'll talk to, disagree with, debate, have a drink with, and agree to disagree with a lefty, no prob.  But anyone who doesn't extend the same courtesy to me in return is a douche.

It's all a bunch of fucking posturing and sanctimony. None of these people give a shit about bio essentialism or any of their other isms unless they can use it to make themselves feel important on the internet.

The lefties I know are much more grounded in reality. The idealistic idiots are either young and lack life experience or are posing for internet cred.

end rant.

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 10, 2022, 07:10:55 PM
It's all a bunch of fucking posturing and sanctimony. None of these people give a shit about bio essentialism or any of their other isms unless they can use it to make themselves feel important on the internet.

The lefties I know are much more grounded in reality. The idealistic idiots are either young and lack life experience or are posing for internet cred.

end rant.

Honestly, I don't think you can rule out that some of them are just stupid.  What they call "biological essentialism" is what everyone else calls "science."  I mean, what explanation is there for a giraffe's preference for vegetable matter, a tiger's predatory behavior, or a deer's timidity?  Biology.  No one with an iota of scientific credibility would argue that deer would be as aggressive as tigers, if only they had been raised differently.  The problem is that the woke crowd, despite their assertions that the "races" in D&D are different species, cannot themselves conceive of D&D race as anything other than human ethnicities.  And, of course, we must all be punished for their lack of imagination and intelligence...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 10, 2022, 10:39:43 PM
Honestly, I don't think you can rule out that some of them are just stupid.  What they call "biological essentialism" is what everyone else calls "science."

Pretty much.  The left invents their own lexicon that turns everything into victimhood, whichthey parade around as real terminology.  This make you sucked in to the debate on their terms.  You win the debate by mocking and ridiculing it.

Biological essentialism is reality, unless you think that creatures have some kind of hidden spiritual essence that gives them properties (in which case I guess you are a 'spiritual essentialist').