The Box of Chocolates Thread (You never know what you're going to get!)

You mean like that song "proud to be an American" is singing about something that isnt real?

That's what social construction is all about.

You can dig deep but you won't find any sort of American gene in your DNA or any sort of nationality center in the brain.

I dont actually know who you are responding to or the context of your post, but most of the people who make this argument simultaneously will argue that Palestinians have some genetic connection to the nation of Palestine, which is paradoxical because there has never been a nation of Palestine.

The point being your argument isn't something most people use in any principled fashion.

My mom got into tracing her genetics/ancestry and will make these sorts of arguments (not about Palestine but in general) and I tell her she's nuts and parroting the Nazis

I agree with that but dont see what that has to do with something being real or not. When you say real, and reference dna, are you meaning its not an innate part of a person at birth, and only those innate things are "real"?

People can make up whatever categories they want and treat them as real. That's sort of the nature of identity. But it doesn't mean that those categories have an underlying basis in the mind.

There are no tests nationality or race. But there definitely is for ethnicity.

I think it fair to say there is some genetic predisposition towards "tribalism," that is being predisposed towards organizing and cooperating with those persons to likely share genes with us (basically selfish gene view of the world), and that in modern social contexts this is manifested as "nationalism."

That is I think it pretty obvious we are not working with a blank slate, and the existing hardware makes embracing nationalism appealing for most, but certainly not all, people.

Genes cluster any time there are isolated populations and we can test for that.

And if people want to say that they are proud to have some specific clustering of genes then I'll probably call them a nazi and think they suffer from a form of mental illness.

I dated a Kenyan girl once who moved with her family to the US when she was 14. And she had a younger sister who was like 7 years younger than her, who had spent more than half her life in the US including her most formative years, and it would be funny because I'd go to their house and the whole rest of the family was Kenyan but the younger sister had no accent and sounded and acted just like an American and I was able to relate to her differently than the rest of the family. So even though nationality is artificial, it still trumps ethnicity.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. It is well known that accents stabilize around ages 12-14.

I'm saying that yes, while there are tests for ethnicity, that that doesn't really mean that much. Nurture > nature.

I think this is extremely context dependent, to the point it isn't actually true at all in any meaningful way.

For example, as one extreme example growing up in Germany and being fluent in German wouldn't have gotten you very far in German society circa late 1930s if you had clear Jewish lineage.

As a less extreme example, in colleges today ethnic affinity groups are very popular, to the point where for those who participate in them they become a more important part of identity for many college students than national identity.

As another example topical to current events, it is identified there is a rigid informal hierarchy among Jews in Israel, where Ashkenazi are regarded as higher status, regardless of how long they have been in the country. And this is of course even more true for pretty much any white/Jewish Israeli relative to non Jewish Arabs. My understanding is in Israel recent immigrant Russians, which very questionable Jewish ancestry and that dont speak a word of Hebrew, are regarded as having higher social status than native born non-Jewish Arabs that speak fluent Hebrew.

I would say there is a clear "tribal" instinct in humans, and how this is manifested is extremely dependent on context and social conditioning.

And the fact that the United States is perhaps the most impressive example of forming identity around groups not linked to lineage, and there is still plenty of lineage based identity and conflict, demonstrates just how ingrained "nature" really is.

Perhaps the most impressive example of nurture overcoming nature is how American military groups are organized, but this requires extreme conditioning to achieve, and there are limits even here (see the alleged culture of white supremacy, at least according to the MSM).

Any test used for nationality could also certainly be used for race.

Not really. In some instances yes like with Japanese but you're going to find it hard in others.

I haven't had one of these tests done myself, but my sister has, so its results should be about the same as mine.

It said something like 35% northern European, 60% central European, 5% unknown. I'm pretty sure those results could be interpreted as white/Caucasian, and no one who tested similarly would likely be categorized as Asian by anyone.

Have you ever known any cutters? These are people-- always females-- who cut themselves presumably in order to feel pain or perhaps to feel anything-- I haven't read any literature on them so idk there but I've known several and more of them than I know trans so they must be out there in decently large numbers-- although tbf I'm also drawn to them so my sample might be skewed..

But I like the idea of clinics for them so that they can be cut by professionals. It seems pretty analogous to the eunuch situation you're describing.

And yeah sure why not assist the eunuchs? But is it actually a gender identity?

luckbox, how many cutters did you date and were you able to save any of them?

Wat? Males may be more likely to engage in other forms of non-suicidal self-injury, but cutting is certainly not limited to females.

Dude,

You forgot to "like" your own post. I mean, it was definitely a nomination for "erm of the year" category, so don't be shy.

More generally - if you're going to insult someone, make it funny, yeah? Whatever you are doing here is... not good.

Just one. And people can only save themselves of course although I've definitely been a positive person in her life. After I was with her she got into meth, cleaned herself up, and now lives with some cop.

Interesting. Males are only useful for sports and gambling so if they're cutting themselves too I didn't know. Although to be sure I've never known any with sliced up arms and I've known like 3 females this way

I have. I don't know why you say "always females". Or what this has to do with anything.

I was just describing them and apparently wrong.