Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
7Wannabe5
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Ego wrote:Fourteen. Early bloomer?
Yeah, just like Juliet. Found the boy-next-door sort of bland, so I would hitchhike to the roller rink 10 miles closer in to the city center where the somewhat more ethnic-ey badder boys lived. Almost 30 years later, I was reminiscing with an African-American lover who was just a couple years older than me, and we determined that he would have been skating at the same time at the roller rink where no white girl who lived in my suburb would have ever been found. Jewish girl, maybe.

The amygdala is involved in sexual arousal, snugly sandwiched in with fear and aggression. You have to be more than a bit of a natural risk taker to grow up sheltered white girl in post-riot apartheid Detroit and ever find yourself in bed with 6'5" African-American man who does 500 push-ups every day. Maybe kind of like surfing.

BRUTE
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

Ego wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 6:00 pm
Xenophobia is largely a learned response. Those with a diverse peer group when they are young become adults who do not subconsciously react negatively to those who are different. Those who grew up in a monoculture end up with the implicit bias that all the SJW types are screaming about.
that study seems to confirm exactly the way brute thinks racism (or any other type of xenophobia) works. it's merely adaptation.

in this sense, humans growing up in a monoculture aren't "inherently racist", they simply haven't experienced looking at black humans enough to get used to the idea.

this maybe even explains the old cliche that, to some humans, "all asian humans look alike". if a human had never seen an asian person before, certainly the distinctive visual differences would stand out, and this human would have to build new reference points for differentiating between different asian humans. the human had to learn how to distinguish other humans, period, as a child.

so if xenophobia is not a symptom of inherent moral inferiority, but merely a lack of exposure, doesn't that almost solve the entire thing? just like weak humans could lift weights, learn a foreign language, learn math, learn riding a bicycle.. it's merely an acquired skill.

it would mean that in the long term, xenophobia would destroy itself. all xenophobes who came into contact with their respective xenos would quickly lose their phobia due to exposure. the only way to stay a xenophobe would be to isolate in a monoculture, where there could be very little contact with the xeno, and therefore, likely, few problems.

this is pretty much how brute thinks it works, and the study doesn't surprise him at all.

what is annoying is that many on the left have a completely different understanding of xenophobia. they seem to treat it as the new original sin, just like zealous christians used to treat gays and butt sex. turns out, exposure gets rid of the xenophobia pretty quickly, and now all humans in the west are pretty much used to gays and butt sex.

but this weird moralizing and frothing at the mouth over other humans who simply lack exposure.. very counter productive. if brute saw many weak humans, would condemning them morally for their weakness really be the best way to get them to lift weights?

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Ego
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by Ego »

BRUTE wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:21 pm
but this weird moralizing and frothing at the mouth over other humans who simply lack exposure.. very counter productive. if brute saw many weak humans, would condemning them morally for their weakness really be the best way to get them to lift weights?
I'm glad we agree that there is a weakness. That, after all, is what was being argued over there.... whether the weakness exists at all.

With that out of the way, we can move on to what can be done for those who, as you say, lack exposure. Is it counter productive for the person who lacks exposure? Perhaps. Maybe they will retreat further into their monoculture. Who knows, maybe they'll gain a bit of insight into their own inner workings. Maybe they'll think twice next time.

But that's not how societal change really happens. We know how that occurs. Think about the fourteen-year-old with the amygdala that is just now coming on line. Or the twenty-year-old who grew up with a semi-diverse peer group and an amygdala that could tilt him in either direction depending on his environment. Might he witness the consequences faced by those who lack exposure? Could witnessing those consequences nudge him ever so slightly away from the same path?

The majority of my generation have amygdalas that are very different from those of iGen and Millennials. It is one of their most beautiful characteristics. We need to protect them from those who want to change them. Many try to protect by sheltering, which, for obvious reasons does not work in this case. It is the exact opposit of what is needed.

In this case, the only way to protect is to exhibit the ugly truth for all to see.

BRUTE
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

whose amygdalae are beautiful? and who wants to change them?

7Wannabe5
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

If racism (or any other 'ism) could be erased by simple exposure then how does one explain Southern Plantation culture? In the movie "The Warriors", the mixed-race Warriors gang was still a gang. Every gang has a leader and owns a piece of turf. Skin color is just a stupid-easy marker.

I have never (thankfully!) been exposed to military training, but it is my understanding that part of the process is to break down sense of individuality and form sense of band of brothers. Once a Marine, always a Marine. When humans engage in warfare, play at sports, or form gangs, they wear uniforms that help with identification of friend vs. foe. The Civil War in America was a "brother against brother" war. When an individual who lives in the woods off a two-track rut in rural Michigan drapes a Confederate flag around his mailbox, that does not necessarily mean that he lacks exposure to African-Americans.

Have you seen the movie "8 Mile? " That's a real thing. The band "38 Special" was part of a free concert series on the Detroit riverfront I wandered into recently, and there were very few African-Americans in attendance. Reason being that Southern Rock is a signifier just like a Confederate flag, just like a white boy wearing his pants drooping down past his underwear.

The 6th grade boys in the low income, very diverse groups I teach often break into scuffles. Sometimes the fights will break out along racial or religious lines. Sometimes not. One day when I was giving a mini-lecture on the topic of how fighting interferes with learning, one very bright little bystander girl simply stated "Yes, but 6th graders like to fight more than they like to learn math."

On the weekend that the football game takes place between Michigan and Ohio State, individuals who "like to fight" and "like to learn math" will often wear sweatshirts or fly flags to identify themselves as rivals. Many forget that the nicknames of these teams are the same nicknames used by the opposing forces in the war for the possession of Toledo in 1835-1836, perhaps because it was a fairly bloodless and brief affair, not unlike a football game.

The most brilliant work on the topic of how humans form 'isms I have ever read is Diane Johnson's "Le Marriage" and "Le Divorce." These novels can be read, and were once mis-branded, as a variety of chick-lit or maybe the script for a standard romantic comedy, but they are really a dark exploration of the human tendencies towards tribal affiliation. The author purposefully chooses American and French for the identities of the engaged, married, and then divorced couple and their extended family/friend groups, because no initial known core or historical conflict. We are the same, yet different, how delightful! Then bit by bit, tension by tension, breaks it down.

Sometimes humans like to fight more than they like to learn math. Resources are growing tight. Humans fly colors when they are getting ready to fight. Some human gangs are composed of humans with different color skin who wear the same uniform or fly the same signifiers. Being able to sit in a quiet orderly classroom and learn math in a room full of other diverse humans is a luxury made possible by affluence. Peak affluence occurred somewhere between 1958 and 1978. Sesame Street was first broadcast in 1969, and it took a generation for the meme to penetrate as far as it did. Unfortunately, I believe the situation is not likely to improve.

BRUTE
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

brute isn't sure that southern plantation culture classifies as xenophobic. reportedly, tons of slave owners had sex, affairs, and even children black slaves. black slaves worked in the household and watched children.

that doesn't strike brute as particularly fearful (phobic) behavior towards blacks.

on the other hand, brute isn't claiming that xenophobia is the only thing that can lead to immoral behavior or tribalism.

bryan
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by bryan »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:28 am
On the weekend that the football game takes place between Michigan and Ohio State, individuals who "like to fight" and "like to learn math" will often wear sweatshirts or fly flags to identify themselves as rivals. Many forget that the nicknames of these teams are the same nicknames used by the opposing forces in the war for the possession of Toledo in 1835-1836, perhaps because it was a fairly bloodless and brief affair, not unlike a football game.
One of the scariest things in my life has been going to Alabama/Auburn or Alabama/Tennessee games. It's probably the closest I'll ever come to being on the receiving end of violent racism.. Luckily there's always enough sane people around to prevent lynchings or other things carrying on too far (not always the case at other games elsewhere in the world).

7Wannabe5
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

BRUTE wrote:brute isn't sure that southern plantation culture classifies as xenophobic. reportedly, tons of slave owners had sex, affairs, and even children black slaves. black slaves worked in the household and watched children.
Right. There are two white individuals over the age of 70 in my urban acquaintance who have black children or black grandchildren whom they appear to love dearly, who also rather freely make use of the N word in conversation. It is clear within the context that they use it that the N word does not apply to any black person, just a member of the sub-group of black people who might instantly steal a bike off your porch if you don't lock it up. OTOH, in their opinion, the green people might harbor terrorists, and almost certainly collude to commit welfare fraud, but it is tolerable to live next door to them because at least they do not tend towards stealing bikes. Likely because their religion does not permit the use of drugs and alcohol and the whole chopping off the hand at the wrist kind of things they still do to each other.

Of course, this is in a neighborhood where Appalachian heritage white kids are still called "crackers" on the playground, and where a young woman working at the corner pizza place laughed and apologized for confusing me with another customer by saying "Sorry, all Polish women look alike, right? That's why I dye my hair darker." I never fully grokked why the expression "dumb blonde" was stereotype applied to my rough phenotype until I heard children who look like me struggling to learn to speak English.

At the time just prior to the Civil War, there were a good number of African heritage individuals who worked seasonally on the farms around Detroit, because close to the border of Canada, where slavery had already been outlawed. There was a very active Quaker community in the flatter drained swamp farmland closer to the Ohio border, and there are still tunnels from the underground railroad days in the basements of some of the historic homes in the county where my very white, white children's red-headed father's family settled and farmed. There is a lake in this county that bears the same name as my kids, and their ancestor that settled on the lake became so friendly with some members of the native Pottawatomie tribe he gave his son a native name. My children also have cousins of African-American heritage because my mother-in-law had an affair with a black man who attended her small religious college on a scholarship back in the 1960s. She was forced to give the baby up for adoption, but was reunited with him and his kids about 10 years ago. My radical Vietnam War protestor paternal uncle married a woman of Filipino heritage, and so did my third sister, so my extremely white, white kids and I have a bunch of very near relatives who look vaguely Hawaiian or Hispanic or "What are you?"

Anyways, in the memoir of an early white settler in the realm of the city where Henry Ford built his museum, which is now majority Muslim immigrant population, I read about an interesting historical event. A beautiful young black woman who was the pampered mistress of her white Southern owner, was successfully brought to freedom in a rough encampment in Canada near Detroit, but then she attempted to run back to her life of greater affluence as a slave, and this caused a great disturbance within the black community. Humans are complex creatures. History is a complex narrative. Huge error in judgment to think you know any human's story until you get to know him or her. (Also, I think if my very pale son was made to pay reparations to one of his darker skinned cousins, they would probably both decide to go out and spend the money on buying some beers for some Brazilian heritage girls.)

7Wannabe5
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Bryan wrote:One of the scariest things in my life has been going to Alabama/Auburn or Alabama/Tennessee games.
I dated a black guy who played for Alabama in the 70s. He used the phrase "treated like a piece of meat" to describe the experience. OTOH, he also described his sexual experience during that era as "I used to just hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it,...but then one day I decided that I wanted a girlfriend.", so I guess the whole piece of meat thing has it's pros and cons.

Another lover once texted me "Whatcha doin" and since I was indulging in some treat while watching endless episodes of some British television production, I replied "Pudding and BBC", to which he responded "lol- Well then, I guess you don't need me."

My Persian-American ex came from an affluent family in Tehran. His father was self-made orphaned-early, and his mother was a spoiled wealthy girl. The older spinster sisters of his father did all the housekeeping, but gave their brother's young bride a bit of grief. Her first child was a girl, so not good enough, but when she gave birth to my ex, the aunts finally offered their approval, so the nickname my ex was given by his mother at birth was "The Golden Penis." Therefore, my advice to all females everywhere is that no matter what the skin-color, religion or ethnic heritage, do not allow yourself to become involved with any man whose mother nicknamed him anything remotely like that.

BRUTE
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by BRUTE »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Aug 18, 2017 4:22 am
all Polish women look alike
well, there are, uhh, certain.. qualities? that many of them share.

baska
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by baska »

^ like what exacly?

vezkor
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by vezkor »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:46 pm
You can buy some serious acreage in rural Michigan for the price of a college education.
Since the college education has been fully paid for as of yesterday, I'm on track to have both of these things... Everyone on the forums is invited to live on my ERE permaculture farm once it's up and running. :lol:

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GandK
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by GandK »

Regarding the Them vs Us hatred portion of this conversation:

Harvard Business Review piece, The Limits of Empathy (part science, part opinion)

TL;DR: Empathy is a finite internal resource, much like attention and willpower. People have varying default amounts of it, but it doesn't persist; that amount is spent and must be restored over time to be available again. Most people preferentially give their limited supply of empathy to people in their own in-groups, leaving little or none for outsiders (unless they work in a field like medicine, in which case they may spend it all on strangers and have none left for family). Empathy also generally causes us to overlook the faults of our own side and overemphasize any faults on the other side, creating counterproductive hostility. Awareness and effort are required to counteract this human default behavior. Studies are cited and examples are given.

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fiby41
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by fiby41 »

GandK wrote:
Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:57 pm

TL;DR: Empathy is a finite internal resource, much like attention and willpower. People have varying default amounts of it, but it doesn't persist; that amount is spent and must be restored over time to be available again. Most people preferentially give their limited supply of empathy to people in their own in-groups, leaving little or none for outsiders
Dunbar number may also be related to this. Robin Dunbar says that the cognitive limit for maintaining meaningful & stable relations with, is 150 people, at a time.

bryan
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Re: Choo choo - all aboard the Trump Train

Post by bryan »

Just watched the "Icarus" documentary on Netflix and would recommend it. Why I'm posting this here.. it's because I think the US Presidential election was nicely manipulated, and to a farther extant than what people think, by foreign powers. That in turn reminded me of the the thoughts I had to myself when considering voting for either Trump or Hillary. "For Trump.. okay forget it I'm not voting for Trump. For Hillary, she'll be a damn effective President (better than Obama or Bush) but to what end?"

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