Condescension wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:17 am
President Eden wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 5:36 am
You clearly disagree with that position, so why do you think it is unjust to prefer one's own offspring to others?
When did I say that it's unjust for parents to prefer their children over others'?
Condescension wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 2:10 am
Any system that favors some newborns over others is unjust.
Am I misunderstanding this post?
Condescension wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:22 am
President Eden wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 5:36 am
For example, people of West African ancestry hold a disproportionately high number of world sprinting records compared to people of European ancestry, while the reverse is true for world swimming records.
Per one study from two scientists at Howard University, this is due to a slight difference in the length of the torsos of black and white people: at the same heights, whites have slightly longer torsos and slightly shorter legs than blacks, which is an advantage in swimming (where bigger torsos generate bigger waves which propel swimmers forward faster) but a disadvantage in sprinting or other forms of running (where bigger torsos constitute more dead weight for runners).
Yes, I'm sure these minor physiological differences are why black households make $28,300 less per year on average.
There's more to it than that, obviously. I picked a very clear-cut example to illustrate the principle of evolution and environmental selection applying to humans. I don't know why you aren't responding to the core argument being made and instead are objecting to the specific example chosen.
Let's jump straight to a contentious one that has direct impact on American society: race and IQ.
IQ in American society is positively correlated with income and negatively correlated with criminality.
IQ is known to be partially but not entirely inherited.
For whatever reason, black people in the US have significantly lower measured IQs than those of all other races, even when other non-genetic factors affecting IQ are controlled for (income levels, educational attainment).
The expected outcome of these observations is that black people in the US, among other disadvantages, would have lower incomes and greater rates of criminality.
What is the solution here from a standpoint that race absolutely should not have an effect on life outcomes? Of course you can argue that non-genetic factors which affect black life outcomes should be addressed, but we have reason to believe that this won't be enough to solve the issue. Even once the IQ gap is solely reduced to genetic causes, it will still exist. What then?
We can even put the same problem in a non-racial way if that helps: American society is constructed in a way that rewards the mental traits which are measured by IQ, and the distribution of these traits is both uneven and follows patterns which you described in the first post of this discussion as "morally arbitrary". How do you plan to change American society so that this pattern is corrected?
Condescension wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:22 am
President Eden wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 3:01 am
Class is derived from success (or a lack of it) in an existing society and thus serves to reinforce whatever natural gaps already existed. Put another way, being a member of a different class doesn't make people different; people being different lads to people being members of different classes.
Your class is determined almost entirely by your parents' class. The single greatest predictor of a person's income is their parents' income. I'm sure you'll have the bog standard social Darwinist answer to this as well. People made similar arguments to justify aristocracy and rule by birth.
Mind if I post all this on Shit Liberals Say?
That has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
Class is not intrinsic to a person's biology. In some societies, there are traits which determine class, which are highly heritable. The obvious example, which you already gave, is rule by birth. In that sense, class may be "heritable" -- you are the eldest son of the king, which means you will inherit the kingdom when he dies -- but there's no "crown prince" gene in your DNA, that status is conferred by the society's rules.
Also, you keep using that word "just" or its variants. Please understand that I am basing my ideas on what I believe to be
true and am not making moralistic judgments. I do not believe the current state of American society is the least bit fair or good for the overwhelming majority of its members, of all races. I am not arguing for some kind of "status quo" or attempting to "justify" gaps in life outcomes that exist. I could possibly be accused of not being as concerned that the gaps exist than other posters on this site, but it is not out of a belief that those gaps are
good or should be protected; rather it is out of a belief that they are beyond our capacity to change, and that the best course of action is to design systems based on our best understanding of why those gaps exist, in order to minimize them and their detrimental impact on society.
I have no idea what Shit Liberals Say is, and I expect that you're going to post it or not regardless of my answer lol. I don't consider myself a liberal (small-L or American meaning) though.