Wow, liberal fascism distilled, pretty much a call to arms for the destruction of individual cultures and global imposition of wrongthink. South Park's Death Camp of Tolerance comes to mind. I await the introduction of the reeducation gulags.
Edit: I'm just amazed that people cannot see this guy is blantantly arguing for the exact thing he claims to despise:
'Meanwhile, give the right-of-way to people driving cars with the “Mean people suck” bumper sticker, and remind everyone that we’re in this together against Lord Voldemort and House Slytherin.'
He goes on at length about why us and them is bad and then LITERALLY ARGUES FOR an us and them attitude :|
Since we've asked you repeatedly not to take HN threads into ideological flamewar, and you're still doing it, I've banned this account. We also ban accounts that use HN primarily for political battle, which you have. Given that your profile references "things geospatial" and not "liberal fascism" I'm sorta sad about that, but a fireman must do his job.
Sapolsky is just arguing for us to understand each other a little bit more, recognize unconscious biases, and move towards judging one another on individual merits rather than groupthink. These are basic free-society, founding fathers kind of ideals. I think you're projecting modern (maybe justified) worries onto these old and common ideals.
> and then LITERALLY ARGUES FOR an us and them attitude :|
I'll argue that he doesn't refute his own point by closing with a claim that we're all the US against a THEM of eternal evil embodied. It's like the non-overtoned version of saying "it's all of humanity vs satan".
To say bluntly -- Sapolsky was not arguing for us to strive towards including the principalities of timeless spiritual evil in the _us_ group.
OK, but look at the context - out of nowhere we have obvious diversity at all costs propaganda. I'm watching the BBC's Christmas trailer now which involves a brown skinned single father and his daughter. This in no way represents the average in the UK in fact the UK is almost 90% white - so what message is the BBC trying to send? Am I one of the bad guys to recognise the colour of the skin? Because you can bet that whoever came up with the idea certainly had race at the front of their minds. Is the UK really so racist that we deserve to be subjected to this type of manipulation? Is it beyond the realms of possibility that the people behind this agitprop are in fact the very same nefarious forces you mention?
>This in no way represents the average in the UK in fact the UK is almost 90% white - so what message is the BBC trying to send?
"Hey brown people. You're not being completely ignored by our society. When we have to make decisions based on arbitrary characteristics like race, we prefer to occasional choose people you might be able to relate to on the bases of colour, rather than trying to appeal to some obviously incorrect notion that we should only relate to 'the average UK citizen' (which doesn't exist)."
Or maybe those actors just worked best? Or maybe they drew straws. Either way, there's no reason to believe that the skin colour of the actors on your screen is some kind of manipulation/propaganda against you. That's an irrational leap.
>Am I one of the bad guys to recognise the colour of the skin?
No. You're one of the bad guys for failing to recognize that the colour of the skin is an arbitrary choice and thus not relevant. The only thing about a person you should consider relevant is their ability to make good decisions.
The BBC will not occupy any moral high ground by using only white actors. (Which is what you're saying they should do, on account of some frankly stupid appeal to 'averages.' The 'average' UK citizen is riddled with disease and missing most of their limbs. So maybe don't try to tacitly substitute 'average' for 'ideal/typical/most common'. And why does the BBC has any obligation to represent any of these anyway?)
Maybe that's a harsh-seeming way of putting it, but that's the logical alternative you imply by using crappy metrics.
Edit: I'm just amazed that people cannot see this guy is blantantly arguing for the exact thing he claims to despise:
'Meanwhile, give the right-of-way to people driving cars with the “Mean people suck” bumper sticker, and remind everyone that we’re in this together against Lord Voldemort and House Slytherin.'
He goes on at length about why us and them is bad and then LITERALLY ARGUES FOR an us and them attitude :|