THIS IS MY LAST EDUCATION FOR @Inanimate Pragmatist , @Br4va and all the other Ethnic Haters
1/ people act like humanity is split into a few clean biological races like we're pokemon types. we're not. humans are one species and genetic variation overlaps heavily between populations. ancestry is real, but ancestry ≠ race.
2/ the modern western idea of “race” really took shape during the last few hundred years, especially with european colonialism. Linnaeus' Systema Naturae in 1735 is one of the big milestones. Later european “race scientists” started attaching intelligence, morality and other traits to these categories. this stuff was heavily connected to slavery, colonialism and racial hierarchy.
3/ this doesn't mean population differences are fake. obviously people from west africa, scandinavia, east asia etc. have different ancestry and different frequencies of certain genes. the mistake is taking those population differences and turning them into a few rigid biological races.
4/ now the “africans are genetically dumber” argument. yes, some african countries score lower on certain standardized tests and have worse educational outcomes than wealthy european countries. nobody needs to pretend otherwise. but a test-score difference does NOT automatically equal a genetic intelligence difference.
5/ you're comparing people who can have completely different childhood environments: nutrition, disease, healthcare, years of schooling, teacher quality, electricity, books, internet, class sizes, poverty, political stability etc. all of this affects cognitive development and school performance.
6/ africa isn't even one homogeneous population. it's the most genetically diverse continent on earth. a nigerian, ethiopian, south african and moroccan don't magically form one giant biological “race” with one shared IQ.
7/ and a lot of the “national IQ” stuff online is shaky as hell. some of the famous datasets use tiny or unrepresentative samples from particular schools/regions and then pretend the result represents an entire country. that's not enough evidence to claim an entire continent is genetically less intelligent.
8/ education itself changes test performance. look at the Flynn effect: average intelligence-test scores have increased substantially across generations in many populations. genes obviously didn't suddenly evolve massively within a few decades, so environment clearly matters a lot.
9/ education in sub-saharan africa also has huge structural problems. the World Bank has estimated that around 9/10 children in the region struggle to read by age 10. there are major shortages of schools, teachers and funding, and millions of children are out of school.
10/ and no, this isn't simply because “africans don't value education.” colonial extraction, commodity dependence, debt, infrastructure problems, conflict and poverty all matter. corruption and bad governments matter too. blaming literally everything on europe would be just as stupid as blaming everything on african genetics.
11/ the “western countries just print fake money and flood africa with it” explanation is too simplistic, but there IS a real financial problem. monetary policy in the US and other rich countries affects global capital flows. when interest rates rise, money can move out of developing countries, currencies can weaken and borrowing gets more expensive. the IMF has documented these spillovers.
12/ africa also loses huge amounts of money through illicit financial flows. UNCTAD estimates around $88.6 billion per year leaves africa through things like trade misinvoicing, tax avoidance and other illicit flows. that's money that could otherwise contribute to investment and public services.
13/ debt is another problem. developing countries spend huge amounts servicing external debt, which leaves less money for infrastructure, healthcare and education. again, this doesn't mean europe is responsible for every african problem, but it obviously makes development harder.
14/ now the “great replacement.” demographic change ≠ replacement conspiracy. humans have been migrating, mixing, conquering, assimilating and changing cultures for thousands of years.
15/ north africa itself has experienced centuries of arab migration, conquest, intermarriage, language shift and arabization. if changing demographics automatically means “replacement,” then you could describe huge parts of african history as replacement too. obviously that's not how serious historians normally describe it.
16/ the modern term “Great Replacement” was popularized by french writer Renaud Camus in 2011. the theory basically turns immigration and changing birth rates into a story about europeans supposedly being deliberately replaced by non-europeans.
17/ you can argue about immigration, birth rates, assimilation or multiculturalism without believing in a secret replacement plan. demographic statistics showing that a population is changing don't prove that somebody is deliberately trying to eliminate that population.
18/ same thing with IQ. if you want to claim that africans are genetically less intelligent, you need actual evidence of a genetic mechanism while controlling for the massive environmental differences between populations. “country X scored lower on a test” doesn't prove that.
19/ so the reasonable position isn't “all populations are literally identical in every measurable way.” obviously they're not. the point is that population differences, ancestry and socioeconomic outcomes do not automatically prove biological racial hierarchy.
20/ basically: ancestry is real. genetic variation is real. educational inequality is real. demographic change is real. none of those facts magically proves that races are fixed biological types, that africans are genetically stupid, or that europeans are victims of some coordinated “replacement.
@junebug @TonyDr self ban regardless i will return someday when i have enough money to actually looksmax, back to lurking i go
1/ people act like humanity is split into a few clean biological races like we're pokemon types. we're not. humans are one species and genetic variation overlaps heavily between populations. ancestry is real, but ancestry ≠ race.
2/ the modern western idea of “race” really took shape during the last few hundred years, especially with european colonialism. Linnaeus' Systema Naturae in 1735 is one of the big milestones. Later european “race scientists” started attaching intelligence, morality and other traits to these categories. this stuff was heavily connected to slavery, colonialism and racial hierarchy.
3/ this doesn't mean population differences are fake. obviously people from west africa, scandinavia, east asia etc. have different ancestry and different frequencies of certain genes. the mistake is taking those population differences and turning them into a few rigid biological races.
4/ now the “africans are genetically dumber” argument. yes, some african countries score lower on certain standardized tests and have worse educational outcomes than wealthy european countries. nobody needs to pretend otherwise. but a test-score difference does NOT automatically equal a genetic intelligence difference.
5/ you're comparing people who can have completely different childhood environments: nutrition, disease, healthcare, years of schooling, teacher quality, electricity, books, internet, class sizes, poverty, political stability etc. all of this affects cognitive development and school performance.
6/ africa isn't even one homogeneous population. it's the most genetically diverse continent on earth. a nigerian, ethiopian, south african and moroccan don't magically form one giant biological “race” with one shared IQ.
7/ and a lot of the “national IQ” stuff online is shaky as hell. some of the famous datasets use tiny or unrepresentative samples from particular schools/regions and then pretend the result represents an entire country. that's not enough evidence to claim an entire continent is genetically less intelligent.
8/ education itself changes test performance. look at the Flynn effect: average intelligence-test scores have increased substantially across generations in many populations. genes obviously didn't suddenly evolve massively within a few decades, so environment clearly matters a lot.
9/ education in sub-saharan africa also has huge structural problems. the World Bank has estimated that around 9/10 children in the region struggle to read by age 10. there are major shortages of schools, teachers and funding, and millions of children are out of school.
10/ and no, this isn't simply because “africans don't value education.” colonial extraction, commodity dependence, debt, infrastructure problems, conflict and poverty all matter. corruption and bad governments matter too. blaming literally everything on europe would be just as stupid as blaming everything on african genetics.
11/ the “western countries just print fake money and flood africa with it” explanation is too simplistic, but there IS a real financial problem. monetary policy in the US and other rich countries affects global capital flows. when interest rates rise, money can move out of developing countries, currencies can weaken and borrowing gets more expensive. the IMF has documented these spillovers.
12/ africa also loses huge amounts of money through illicit financial flows. UNCTAD estimates around $88.6 billion per year leaves africa through things like trade misinvoicing, tax avoidance and other illicit flows. that's money that could otherwise contribute to investment and public services.
13/ debt is another problem. developing countries spend huge amounts servicing external debt, which leaves less money for infrastructure, healthcare and education. again, this doesn't mean europe is responsible for every african problem, but it obviously makes development harder.
14/ now the “great replacement.” demographic change ≠ replacement conspiracy. humans have been migrating, mixing, conquering, assimilating and changing cultures for thousands of years.
15/ north africa itself has experienced centuries of arab migration, conquest, intermarriage, language shift and arabization. if changing demographics automatically means “replacement,” then you could describe huge parts of african history as replacement too. obviously that's not how serious historians normally describe it.
16/ the modern term “Great Replacement” was popularized by french writer Renaud Camus in 2011. the theory basically turns immigration and changing birth rates into a story about europeans supposedly being deliberately replaced by non-europeans.
17/ you can argue about immigration, birth rates, assimilation or multiculturalism without believing in a secret replacement plan. demographic statistics showing that a population is changing don't prove that somebody is deliberately trying to eliminate that population.
18/ same thing with IQ. if you want to claim that africans are genetically less intelligent, you need actual evidence of a genetic mechanism while controlling for the massive environmental differences between populations. “country X scored lower on a test” doesn't prove that.
19/ so the reasonable position isn't “all populations are literally identical in every measurable way.” obviously they're not. the point is that population differences, ancestry and socioeconomic outcomes do not automatically prove biological racial hierarchy.
20/ basically: ancestry is real. genetic variation is real. educational inequality is real. demographic change is real. none of those facts magically proves that races are fixed biological types, that africans are genetically stupid, or that europeans are victims of some coordinated “replacement.
@junebug @TonyDr self ban regardless i will return someday when i have enough money to actually looksmax, back to lurking i go
