QuoteWithin gaming discussions, we had a poster here (threestonegames) who explicitly thought that Africans genetically had lower IQ.

See, this is where you start to confirm what people are saying. If being correct or incorrect about an entirely empirical matter like the heritability of cognitive traits and their geographic distribution is a priori "racist," the term "racist" doesn't mean much any more. The reductio ad absurdem of this is saying Italians have racist faces that Aztec pyramids were racist, except real lefties actually say that nonsense.

You're basically changing being a non-racist from a morality of how you treat people to applying a moral filter to empirical questions. A racist is, in your telling, not someone who treats people like shit because of their race, or somebody who thinks somebody of upright behavior and bearing should be excluded from basic participation in his society due to his lineage, but somebody who thinks different groups of people have observable, heritable traits. This is exactly where "Italians have racist faces" comes from.

The problem is that the whole premise of Western science is that empirical questions are not moral questions, and cannot be settled by moral reasoning. Why do Germans do better at math than the Spanish? Is it culture? Biology? Geography? Economics? A mix? Science says you can't exclude an option by identifying it as morally wicked. Maybe German excellence in mathematics has nothing to do whatsoever with biology, but the point is you can't answer that question by saying, "Only an evil person would think that it could be at all due to biology, therefore we know it is not."

As to whether or not this should apply to a game...well IMO, it's not "racist" to give different races different attributes. It would be "racist" perhaps to do that as a way of demeaning real-life races, or structure narratives and messages of racial supremacist morality into your game, which is what MYFAROG does.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063982A racist is, in your telling, not someone who treats people like shit because of their race, or somebody who thinks somebody of upright behavior and bearing should be excluded from basic participation in his society due to his lineage, but somebody who thinks different groups of people have observable, heritable traits. This is exactly where "Italians have racist faces" comes from.

Having argued with threestonegames for a while, I should say that there are a bunch of other things that he argued about race - of which this was a sample. They did not include calling for violent race war, but they included a lot of attitudes about race.

I might accept that technically someone could think that blacks are fundamentally dumber than whites because of their genetics, without being racist. In practice, though, I don't think this belief is the result of morally neutral thinking. I think people come by this belief as a result of prejudice.

Likewise, what about people who say that the Holocaust didn't happen? That's just a factual disagreement, then, right? It doesn't intrinsically mean they hate Jews, but in practice, I do think that Holocaust deniers are anti-Semitic.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1063982See, this is where you start to confirm what people are saying. If being correct or incorrect about an entirely empirical matter like the heritability of cognitive traits and their geographic distribution is a priori "racist," the term "racist" doesn't mean much any more. The reductio ad absurdem of this is saying Italians have racist faces that Aztec pyramids were racist, except real lefties actually say that nonsense.

You're basically changing being a non-racist from a morality of how you treat people to applying a moral filter to empirical questions. A racist is, in your telling, not someone who treats people like shit because of their race, or somebody who thinks somebody of upright behavior and bearing should be excluded from basic participation in his society due to his lineage, but somebody who thinks different groups of people have observable, heritable traits. This is exactly where "Italians have racist faces" comes from.

The problem is that the whole premise of Western science is that empirical questions are not moral questions, and cannot be settled by moral reasoning. Why do Germans do better at math than the Spanish? Is it culture? Biology? Geography? Economics? A mix? Science says you can't exclude an option by identifying it as morally wicked. Maybe German excellence in mathematics has nothing to do whatsoever with biology, but the point is you can't answer that question by saying, "Only an evil person would think that it could be at all due to biology, therefore we know it is not."

As to whether or not this should apply to a game...well IMO, it's not "racist" to give different races different attributes. It would be "racist" perhaps to do that as a way of demeaning real-life races, or structure narratives and messages of racial supremacist morality into your game, which is what MYFAROG does.

Greetings!

Interesting analyisis, Fearsomepirate! You got me thinking--you're right; anytime anyone suggests that there are distinct racial traits--the liberals go fucking nuts screeching Racism! Racism!

I'm always reminded of the acedmic, biological studies that have been done which prove several things; Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc. typically and consistently score higher than others in regards to engineering, and financial skills. Blacks generally are superior in athletics, over others. It's not a specifically scientific measurement, though certainly an irrefutable sociological analysis that blacks are fantastically skilled in creative performance and musical abilities; Asians, while multi-talented in a variety of areas, just like white and black people, still demonstrate a consistent superiority in mathematic skills, and similar in scientific scoring with whites. These findings are consistent with a variety of scientific studies encompassing a variety of disciplines which suggest such talents, while influenced by exteriors such as education and culture--fundamentally are rooted in a biological foundation.

I don't think a person needs to have a PHD in anything to come to the same reasonable conclusions. As far as racism goes--even referencing such gets the Liberals all frothing like baboons. The liberals typically INSIST that human beings, of whatever colour or ethnicity, are EXACTLY THE SAME, or EXACTLY EQUAL. Sad to burst the liberal's bubble, but SCIENCE shows that there are some talents and tendencies that are genetically favoured by different races or ethnicities.

Interesting stuff for sure.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Can I just say: "Whatever happened to dealing with drama at the game table only if/when it shows up on a case by case basis?"

Quote from: jhkim;1063984I might accept that technically someone could think that blacks are fundamentally dumber than whites because of their genetics, without being racist. In practice, though, I don't think this belief is the result of morally neutral thinking. I think people come by this belief as a result of prejudice.

IME:
1. An anti-racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.
2. An empiricist looks at the data and checks its reliability, but does not reject it just because the result is unwanted.
3. A racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.

On #3, someone racist against Africans will accept evidence of low African IQ, but reject evidence of high African IQ. The reverse of #1.

Quote from: S'mon;1064022IME:
1. An anti-racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.
2. An empiricist looks at the data and checks its reliability, but does not reject it just because the result is unwanted.
3. A racist rejects all data which don't give the results they want.

On #3, someone racist against Africans will accept evidence of low African IQ, but reject evidence of high African IQ. The reverse of #1.

The problem is that "racist" is usually very poorly defined and is an accusation that can be leveled at nearly anybody for making a claim which someone is offended by. If someone is making a statement about differences between races, then to say that such a claim is "racist" is rather nonsensical, the question is whether or not the claim is true and what evidence exists to support or reject that claim.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1064025The problem is that "racist" is usually very poorly defined and is an accusation that can be leveled at nearly anybody for making a claim which someone is offended by. If someone is making a statement about differences between races, then to say that such a claim is "racist" is rather nonsensical, the question is whether or not the claim is true and what evidence exists to support or reject that claim.

I agree, obviously a #1 will call a #2 racist if the evidence doesn't fit with their beliefs. A #3 will also call a #2 derogatory names if the evidence doesn't fit with their own beliefs, but those lack social power currently in mainstream culture.

Anyway we better get off this topic!

Coming full circle to the OP, "PC" is not about this or that element. PC is about normalizing left-wing morals and ideas by policing people's language and socially shaming them. It's about using whatever medium you have as a vehicle for enforcement and propaganda. If you're not doing that, you don't have PC in your game. It's not about whether your game world reflects some or all of the ideas and beliefs you have, but about this overall behavior of enforcement and propaganda. PC in a game makes it intolerably stuffy, it very quickly becomes apparent that the purpose of this adventure is not to have fun, but preach sermons and harangue the morally wayward.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064036Coming full circle to the OP, "PC" is not about this or that element. PC is about normalizing left-wing morals and ideas by policing people's language and socially shaming them. It's about using whatever medium you have as a vehicle for enforcement and propaganda. If you're not doing that, you don't have PC in your game. It's not about whether your game world reflects some or all of the ideas and beliefs you have, but about this overall behavior of enforcement and propaganda. PC in a game makes it intolerably stuffy, it very quickly becomes apparent that the purpose of this adventure is not to have fun, but preach sermons and harangue the morally wayward.

Thanks for bringing this around. What if players have fun with morals-related play, though?

In particular - for the D&D5e game that I referred to in the OP where orcs and other are good...  I have a player who has made a paladin of vengeance - an orc whose parents were killed by humans, and she now takes particular delight in killing evil humans. I should say that the player is also a liberal proponent of "punch a nazi" memes - and killing evil seems to be particularly cathartic fun for her.

I don't think this contradicts anything you said, but it seems like a notable extra wrinkle in the mix.


As far as the use of "racism" goes - a bunch of this seems to be semantic over using the term "racist" versus less extreme terms like "prejudiced" or "bigoted" that still imply bias. I'm less interested in that semantic distinction. I think the more important issue is this:

Quote from: SHARK;1063995I'm always reminded of the acedmic, biological studies that have been done which prove several things; Europeans, Russians, Americans, etc. typically and consistently score higher than others in regards to engineering, and financial skills. Blacks generally are superior in athletics, over others. It's not a specifically scientific measurement, though certainly an irrefutable sociological analysis that blacks are fantastically skilled in creative performance and musical abilities; Asians, while multi-talented in a variety of areas, just like white and black people, still demonstrate a consistent superiority in mathematic skills, and similar in scientific scoring with whites. These findings are consistent with a variety of scientific studies encompassing a variety of disciplines which suggest such talents, while influenced by exteriors such as education and culture--fundamentally are rooted in a biological foundation.

I don't think a person needs to have a PHD in anything to come to the same reasonable conclusions.

Actually, I think the difference between biology, education, and culture is extremely difficult to tangle out within humans. It is ethically impossible to raise human children under controlled conditions. And in practice, it is extremely difficult to even run controlled experiments between significantly different cultures. A group can run a psych experiment on some college campuses in South Korea, South Africa, and the UK - but those have more similarities than differences, and it's unclear that their conclusions will correctly apply to a !Kung tribe member (for example).

So no, I don't think that those conclusions are reasonable. The findings of genetics over the past two decades has been that genetic variation is large within regions - so it's very likely that an Asian has more genetics overall in common with a European than with another Asian. cf.

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/

My secondary field is education studies - and I have a strong skepticism for the validity of any education studies, let alone that they reveal the pure division between genetics and environment/culture.

Short form - this is very difficult science to pursue. Still, genetics has already contradicted previous views of racial variation, that it's also quite likely that science will overturn the view that blacks are genetically good at athletics and music but bad in engineering, finance, and math compared to other races. Belief in that comes from older prejudices, not science.

Quote from: jhkim;1064054Thanks for bringing this around. What if players have fun with morals-related play, though?

It's fine.  Heck, a lot of D&D is that. Can't save people from evil if you don't define "evil" at all. One recent event I would consider majorly PC is when Paizo revised the Golarion setting so that some lawful good deity would no longer be the god of hearth and home. Why? Because a good deity wouldn't support society having gender roles. I don't remember what they changed specifically, because Pathfinder is stupid and I don't pay too close attention. But Paizo's gotten extremely preachy, and there's a growing subtext of "if you don't agree with our fringe morality, you're a wicked person."

Quoteso it's very likely that an Asian has more genetics overall in common with a European than with another Asian

Just as an aside, the number of genes two random individuals have in common is a useless measure, like trying to say there isn't any global warming because Chicago had a record cold winter (the probability that nowhere on the planet has an extremely cold winter in any given year is close to zero). What researchers look at are allele clusters within populations. That's how 23andMe can narrow down which regions of Europe and wherever else your ancestors are from by looking at your genome. The variance in clusters can be quantified, and thus visualized. That's how we get images like this:



We're now entering a new era of behavioral genetics, in which we are discovering to what degree your genes play a role in your personality and behavior. Spoiler: it's high, but attempts to quantify it are crude. The other big discovery of the last 10 years is that in addition to nature and nurture, we need to add gut bacteria. The little guys that make you poop have a huge role in shaping your personality.

That was a long aside.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064116The other big discovery of the last 10 years is that in addition to nature and nurture, we need to add gut bacteria. The little guys that make you poop have a huge role in shaping your personality.

.

That gives new meaning to the term 'Shitlord', don't it...

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064116Just as an aside, the number of genes two random individuals have in common is a useless measure, like trying to say there isn't any global warming because Chicago had a record cold winter (the probability that nowhere on the planet has an extremely cold winter in any given year is close to zero). What researchers look at are allele clusters within populations. That's how 23andMe can narrow down which regions of Europe and wherever else your ancestors are from by looking at your genome. The variance in clusters can be quantified, and thus visualized. That's how we get images like this:

This is explained in more detail in the link I gave earlier. If the intent is to identify what continent your ancestors were from, then yes, modern genetics can do that because there are a handful of distinctive alleles for a given region. But if geneticists want to do something *other* than geolocation of ancestors, then these maps aren't much use.

The older presumption of race is that there would be a lot of alleles in common between Africans, between Europeans, and so forth. However, as you can see from the graphic you posted - there are actually only a handful of alleles that distinguish these groups, compared to hundreds of allele differences between individuals. And most of those are going to be ones for skin color, hair, sickle-cell anemia, and so forth. There isn't a lot of room to picture that there are gene clusters for dancing, financial planning, or math that are distinct between these groups. Given that connection of alleles to behavior is still in its infancy, I will allow that there is the possibility that one of these genes does have some behavioral effect, but I strongly suspect the eventual finding will bear little resemblance to historical racial stereotypes.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1064116We're now entering a new era of behavioral genetics, in which we are discovering to what degree your genes play a role in your personality and behavior. Spoiler: it's high, but attempts to quantify it are crude. The other big discovery of the last 10 years is that in addition to nature and nurture, we need to add gut bacteria. The little guys that make you poop have a huge role in shaping your personality.

I agree that it is advancing, but behavioral genetics is still in its infancy - and psychology and behavioral science in general still have problems in reproducibility.

Quote from: jhkim;1064188This is explained in more detail in the link I gave earlier.

No, it really wasn't. That was a massive exercise in Lewontonin's fallacy.

To keep this vaguely RPG-relevant, consider a d20 and a d14. The average of a d20 roll is 10.5; the average of a d14 is 7.5. The average difference between two individual d20 rolls is 6.65, more than double the average difference between all d20 rolls and all d14 rolls. On top of that, the average difference between a d20 roll and a d14 roll is 6.25!

Lewontonin's fallacy says, "the average between two random, individual d20 rolls is almost the same as the average between an individual d14 roll and an individual d20 roll, therefore there is not a meaningful statistical difference between a d20 and a d14." If you believe that, then you'll be happy to let me switch your d20 for a d14 at the table.

QuoteThe older presumption of race is that there would be a lot of alleles in common between Africans, between Europeans, and so forth.

The older concept of race was invented in the 19th century by people who didn't know what DNA was. There's not really anything you can say about its genetic implications at all.

QuoteHowever, as you can see from the graphic you posted - there are actually only a handful of alleles that distinguish these groups, compared to hundreds of allele differences between individuals. And most of those are going to be ones for skin color, hair, sickle-cell anemia, and so forth. There isn't a lot of room to picture that there are gene clusters for dancing, financial planning, or math that are distinct between these groups.

You should read Robert Plomin's "Blueprint." Twin studies have revealed that everything from how much you like to read to your likelihood of divorce are strongly influenced by genetics. What is outdated is the "nature vs nurture" concept, and the concept of DNA as deterministic programming. It's not an either/or. The effort now is how to quantify the effect nurture has on the expression of nature.

Sticking to the dice comparison, the environment is the rules system. If we use the 5e rules, but swap out our d20 for a d14, your fighter's damage drops by about half, depending on target AC. The "average difference" metric says they're not that different, but drop the two fighters into an environment explicitly designed for the d20, and the d14 fighter can't keep up.

Of course, change the rules environment to favor the d14, and it's an entirely different story!

Quote from: ShieldWife;1064025The problem is that "racist" is usually very poorly defined and is an accusation that can be leveled at nearly anybody for making a claim which someone is offended by. If someone is making a statement about differences between races, then to say that such a claim is "racist" is rather nonsensical, the question is whether or not the claim is true and what evidence exists to support or reject that claim.

And this is precisely why I don't lightly use term lightly. There are a LOT of other terms that cover most of the assertions people use as "racist" that are more appropriate. Racism/Racists are, by the classic definition of the use: people in the act of things they do to others for the perception of some bigoted view of that other race *and* because they believe their race is superior. Otherwise it's just bigotry.

That's a large distinction. No one is saying people don't do heinous shit to one another *because* of their perception of race. That alone *isn't* racism without the superiority point.

I'm not saying this to justify "racism" or "bigotry" - I'm saying it matters because people CAN and DO look down on others for *whatever* reason their culture dictates to them of "the other" without necessarily thinking themselves somehow superior. That illusion is in the minds of people that want to be offended because they find that sense of inferiority in themselves.

I find it quite magical that someone (not you Shieldwife) say with remarkable non-selfawarenes that one "simply doesn't want to use the term" when it clearly means something worse than another term that is bad, but more appropriate. The very act of doing so makes one a bigot - which ironically is exactly the problem we're really talking about. Not racism.


And it's these same self-flagellating bigots that are blind to their own bigotry - looking to cast their demons elsewhere on others that don't agree with them, all because by admission - they want to label people and things, and objects and thoughts as "racist" out of proper context.

where can I get me one of these d14's?  

#shityoudidntknowyouneededuntilyoudid