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3RU7AL

A member since

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Total posts: 14,582

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On the scale of a single family.
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@949havoc
As a family of one, absolutely.
I'm guessing you were hatched out of an abandoned egg somewhere.
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Posted in:
On the scale of a single family.
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@949havoc
A democratic republic, such as the United States
What about a soviet republic.

Don't they elect representatives ?
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@Greyparrot
Well, it would seem that they prefer the USA to their current domestic situation.

Are you sure? I would rather live in Europe than China if I was forcibly resettled by a major superpower.

And it's not like Pakistan told them to fuck off.
I'm not suggesting it's their idea of heaven.

I'm only suggesting that it might be somewhat preferable to hell.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@949havoc
Capitialism is not a government type.
Great point.

What would you say is the "opposite" of "communism" ?
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@Lemming
They don't 'necessarily 'want to live in the 'USA.
Well, it would seem that they prefer the USA to their current domestic situation.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@949havoc
Why are you blending government types with economic types? How about a family being a democracy?
Why do "conservatives" speak as if capitalism and communism are incompatible (specifically as styles of government) ?

Would you describe your family as a democracy ?
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@Lemming
I suppose I don't immediately see a responsibility to move them 'specifically to the United States,
Who is responsible for their predicament ?
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@Greyparrot
Imagine if China in the future had to rescue Americans and brought them to China to resettle as "an act of mercy"
That would be uncharacteristically nice of them.
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@Greyparrot
What's wrong with pakistan?
They didn't invade Afghanistan.
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@thett3
According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan want Sharia law to be the law of the land.
Do you understand what "democracy" is ?
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Why bring Afghan refugees here?
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@thett3
Because of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, people are now clamoring to bring Afghan translators and others who assisted the US military during the war back to the states. But why?
The same reason over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War.
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"White Supremacist" is a racial slur
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@Mesmer
Because Jews and White people aren't the same race lol. They're more similar than other races for sure, but not the same.
Jews, middle-easterners, and north-africans are currently categorized as "white- (non-hispanic)" in the official united states census.
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Platform development
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@drlebronski
can add "anarchism" to the political ideology choices?
Great suggestion.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@SkepticalOne
And is this collectivism promoted by a "sense of duty" or by some perceived incentive like "you help us now and we'll help you later" ?
It could be either or both. 
It still sounds a lot like communism.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
Taking care of your family members, without regard for their ability to pay you back or return the favor in any way, appears to be a communist model.
Why? Why would communism allow for gifts but Capitalism wouldn't?
In a capitalist framework, you only give things away for free, IFF THERE IS A LONG-TERM PROFIT INCENTIVE.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
The proper analogy would be some goons from a local mafia visiting a store clerk and charging a "fee for protection."
The government should be like a non-profit insurance company.

A capitalist government is like a for-profit insurance company.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
Taxation which funds the UBI and UHC is codified with the threat of deadly force.
Taxation doesn't "fund" anything.

Taxation is merely a mechanism to control inflation.

A much more efficient way to control inflation would be to raise the mandatory reserve rate for banks.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
Because you're not coercing a tax out of your children in order to finance said allowance and hospital visits.
Your own children (citizens) should not be a source of income.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
When an allowance is provided to a child it's usually a gift [communism] or an exchange for chores [capitalism].
That's a crucial distinction.

On the one hand, you're teaching your child that they are intrinsically valuable and you love them unconditionally.

On the other hand, you're teaching your child that they are only valuable if they perform labor.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@SkepticalOne
And then there is communism - our time and energy collectively goes to maintaining and progressing the family.
And is this collectivism promoted by a "sense of duty" or by some perceived incentive like "you help us now and we'll help you later" ?
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On the scale of a single family.
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@oromagi
Most post-feminist families are diarchies. 
Are you sure you'd say "most" ?
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Intelligence_06
I can almost visualize no capitalist family, except for that ones of rich companies(even then, the family resembles more of either oligarchy or monarchy). I don't think co-owning an entire family and equating them to currency values is a very good idea.
I sometimes felt like a slave when I was a kid.

Parental ownership of their children (citizens) might be a "capitalist" model.

I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Intelligence_06
As to a communist family, one who shares everything. Poor families tends to be communist: They literally share everything. They live together, and though only one or both parents have jobs, everyone gets the equal thing.
Great point.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
am I to take it that you're assuming Capitalism is devoid of any gifts?
At what point does a capitalistic government give citizens (children) something for free ?

Taking care of your family members, without regard for their ability to pay you back or return the favor in any way, appears to be a communist model.
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
Wait, so are you suggesting that UBI and UHC are not "anti-capitalist" ?
No. Those are anti-capitalist. And the reason being is that in both the distribution of income and the distribution of health-related goods and services, the regulator and distributor is the State.
How is this different from giving your children (citizens) a weekly allowance and taking them to the hospital when they require medical attention ?
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
Not necessarily. One does not have to charge. One can still be provide gifts through Capitalism.
Wait, so are you suggesting that UBI and UHC are not "anti-capitalist" ?
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On the scale of a single family.
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@MarkWebberFan
Are you talking about the difference between authoritarian and authoritative parenting? Is that what totalitarian and communist mean? I don't understand the question, please rephrase. 
Think of your family like a country.

The children are citizens.

Are the parents ruling like a king and queen ?

Does big brother act as a police chief ?
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On the scale of a single family.
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@Athias
Functional? I'd say a functional model would be Capitalist in nature. With that said however, the predominant and preeminent model would reflect totalitarianism.
At what age do children start "earning their room and board" in your totalitarian capitalist family ?
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On the scale of a single family.
On the scale of a single family.

Would you call the functional model of a single family "totalitarian" ?

Would you call the functional model of a single family "communist" ?

Would you call the functional model of a single family "capitalist" ?
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL (TPOE) GPT3 (THE PAPERCLIP PROBLEM)
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@Lemming
Well, be nice if it could calculate a way to extend my life, I suppose.
Through science.
Now the gears are clicking.
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL (TPOE) GPT3 (THE PAPERCLIP PROBLEM)
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@Lemming
I don't need maximum profit.
Just a small profit, would be sufficient for me to then make my own efforts.
I mean, that sounds pretty reasonable.

But do you really think you could just leave that genie in the bottle ?

Don't you think you might want to use it to solve other problems perhaps at some point ?

I mean, you've basically got the combined brains of einstein, elon musk, and warren buffett at your personal disposal.
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL (TPOE) GPT3 (THE PAPERCLIP PROBLEM)
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@Lemming
Actions that would profit me, such as predicting the stock market.
Actions that would prevent it from ever being able to physically 'do anything, or acquire power.
In order to properly predict the stock market, the machine would need access to a lot of information.

And in order to maximize profit, the machine would need to be able to communicate with (manipulate) others.

Do you really think the stock market would be the best vector of attack in order to secure your own personal financial independence ?
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Abortion and covid
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@Athias
Yes, and the obligation to do others no harm (as harm to another would undermine the very framework which informs one's "obligation to oneself.") Anything that would undermine the aforestated would be coercion.
Have you shifted your position on the appropriateness of a "pre-emptive strike" against a perceived threat ?
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Abortion and covid
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@Athias
The Bible is not purely collectivist. If we consider collectivism and individualism on a spectrum, a biblical worldview would fall somewhere in between.
No such spectrum is logically justifiable. There's collectivism; there's individualism. Sustaining this notion of "spectrum" is an oft used device for those who have no intention of resolving their logically dissonant notions.
Well stated.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
I believe the "golden-rule" is a concise expression of our "better-instincts".

I do not believe that all the Jewish teachings are logically coherent.
So you cherry-pick based on your opinion of which teachings make sense to you while rejecting those that don't.
All humans begin their journey to their moral outlook with a blank slate.

The starting point is you.

You (either intentionally or unintentionally) look for external codes and guideposts and traditions and systems that MATCH your internal conscience.

You evaluate the data available to yourself and then you ADOPT an external tradition or system or code (if it feels like a "good-fit").

My internal moral sense tells me "do not do things to other people that you would not want them to do to you".

I did not "learn" this from anything outside of myself.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
That wasn't a clear answer. A yes or no will suffice. Did God create humans as automatons?
THE ANSWER DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION OF GOD.

OMNIPOTENT OMNISCIENT GOD CREATED AUTOMATONS.

SEMIPOTENT SEMISCIENT GOD CREATED MALFUNCTIONS.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
To this question, my answer is probably not with the given information. It could be considered negligence with dire consequences, perhaps even punishable by law, but probably not murder.
Manslaughter perhaps ?
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
If I tasked the GPT3 with controlling a number of robots and taking care of the elderly in a retirement facility or a hospital for example, and I dialed up the creativity to say TWENTY-NINE and watched it for about a week and everything seemed to be working great, and then three months later a robot ended up causing the death of one of the residents, WHO WOULD YOU HOLD RESPONSIBLE ?
The analogy doesn't work because you are talking about a computer program, not a moral agent. 
Let's not "skip ahead".

Forget the analogy aspect for a second.

How would you answer the question as it is presented, at face value ?
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
2. Would you say that deporting a specific group of people who are claiming they are fleeing for their lives, which ultimately ends up with them being killed = murder?
This is the more interesting question.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
They're both equally vague.
No, they're not. One has its foundation in the Old Testament. The other means whatever you want it to mean because there is no foundation to work from.
"foundation in the Pentateuch" means nothing to me.

What does that mean exactly to you ?

It's not obvious what you think the difference is.

Please be slightly more specific, perhaps with an example from real-life or something.
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Abortion and covid
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@Athias
(2) I am in no way stating that a child's necessity in its parents providing it resources is akin to some evil plot.
Well stated.
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Abortion and covid
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@Athias
You can argue that all governments have a responsibility to do as God instructed but they don't.
At what point is "revolution" justified ?
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
But you still haven't answered the question: Did God create humans as automatons?
(IFF) GOD CAN PREDICT ALL POSSIBLE FUTURES (AND) GOD CAN CHANGE ANY AND OR ALL VARIABLES THAT LEAD TO THOSE FUTURES (THEN) GOD CAUSED EVERY ACTION YOU BELIEVE YOU "CHOSE" FOR YOURSELF

the other option would be that god is NOT able to predict all possible futures and or NOT able to change any and or all variables that lead to those futures.

the only way for humans to have hypothetical free-will is for god to NOT KNOW what we are going to do.

only gods IGNORANCE and or INCOMPETENCE can absolve them from responsibility.

ALSO,

If edward bernays proved anything at all, they proved that humans are ridiculously predictable.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
Forget about god for a second.

Would you blame me if something I made catastrophically malfunctioned ?
That depends on what you made. Did you make a moral agent or an automaton? If you made an pre-programmed automaton with no moral agency that only did what you programmed it to do, then I would blame you. If you made a moral agent that willfully violated its intended purpose, and that violations caused a catastrophic malfunction, then I would blame the creation.
Let's use GPT3 as an example of a "moral agent".

Nobody "programmed" GPT3 to perform any specific task.

GPT3 was designed to comb the intarwebz and identify patterns in human language and interactions.

You can ASK GPT3 to perform certain tasks, and set a dial from ZERO "literal" to ONE HUNDRED "insane".

The ZERO setting gives you pretty boring and predictable results, not much of what we humans might call "creativity".

Around TWENTY or THIRTY we start to get "interesting" results.

At these mid-range levels, the GPT3 shows signs of creative problem solving functionally-indistinguishable from that of an "intelligent" human.

THIS SEEMS TO BE AN EXCELLENT PROXY FOR FREE-WILL.

DIAL TOO HIGH AND WE GET INSANITY.

DIAL TOO LOW AND WE GET AN AUTOMATON.

So, back to the example.

If I tasked the GPT3 with controlling a number of robots and taking care of the elderly in a retirement facility or a hospital for example, and I dialed up the creativity to say TWENTY-NINE and watched it for about a week and everything seemed to be working great, and then three months later a robot ended up causing the death of one of the residents, WHO WOULD YOU HOLD RESPONSIBLE ?
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
You know why you pick and choose ?

Can you perhaps link to some source that supports your cherry-picking ?

I've quite honestly been trying to find a coherent moral theory of the old testament ever since I was a small child (when my questions were ignored).
There are a great number of Christians who have put little thought into what the Old Testament Law means for Christians today. I will answer the question but I would first like to hear your answer to my previous question: If you are trying to use the teaching of Jesus to treat your neighbor as yourself which is drawn from the Old Testament, why do you reject the teaching of Leviticus 24:17?
Because Leviticus 24:17 is incoherent.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
Depending on how you define deportation, no.
Let's say some people show up at the border of your country and say that they are fleeing for their very lives.

You ask them to present evidence, and they only have eye-witness-testimony (which is considered solid-gold in a civil court).

You tell them they need better evidence, like corroborating testimony and or photographs or video or something.

They don't have any evidence other than their own eyes and ears.

So  you reject their application and send them back to where they came from.

AND THEN THEY ARE MUTILATED AND OR KILLED.

It almost seems like "murder" to me.
That's not a definition.
IT'S EVEN MORE PRECISE THAN A DEFINITION, IT'S A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
I treat my neighbor like I treat all humans, not necessarily with "love" but with fairness and respect.
I don't necessarily know the contents of your mind. But if you tell me you adhere to the golden rule, and that you seek to treat all humans with fairness and respect, that tells me that you are picking and choosing values from the Bible while rejecting others like Leviticus 24:17, “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death." So to rephrase the question: If you are trying to use the teaching of Jesus to treat your neighbor as yourself which is drawn from the Old Testament, why do you reject the teaching of Leviticus 24:17?
I believe the "golden-rule" is a concise expression of our "better-instincts".

I do not believe that all the Jewish teachings are logically coherent.
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Abortion and covid
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@Fruit_Inspector
Because one is a direct teaching of Jesus that takes the Old Testament ("the Law and the Prophets") into account. The other is a vague sentiment that can mean whatever a person wants it to mean based on their definition of "fairness."
They're both equally vague.
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"White Supremacist" is a racial slur
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@Mesmer
I agree that racial [skin-tone] discrimination has existed long before our time, and the overwhelming majority of humans don't discriminate due to loci/SNP data collections. I'm just arguing that these people are inadvertently correct about different people being genetically different [wtf], sometimes to the point of being a different race.
Why do you think it's worth mentioning and or worth researching whether or not specific genetic markers GENERALLY overlap with SOME forms of discrimination ?

What is the actual difference between the HUTU and TUTSI tribes ?

The TUTSI are taller and more elegant.

IT WAS THE BELGIANS THAT CREATED THE DIVISION.

IT WAS THE BELGIANS THAT CREATED THE DIVISION.

How ?

They picked people, those with thinner noses and lighter skin, they used to measure the width of people's noses.

The BELGIANS used the TUTSI to run the country.

And then when they left, they left the power to the HUTU.

And of course the HUTU took revenge on the "elite" TUTSI for years of repression.

Am I telling the truth Paul ?

Yes, unfortunately.

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"White Supremacist" is a racial slur
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@Mesmer
People should only be self-described.

Instead of trying to force a category on someone, you should ASK THEM if they identify with some proposed generalized type and or label.

Forcing a category on someone (that they do not personally self-describe as) is almost always an AD HOMINEM ATTACK.
If you insist that labels can be used to people who self-describe, you'll get more grifters and liars who pretend to be something they're not. For example, if you don't go to church, and you don't believe in God, and you don't know anything about the Bible, chances are you're not a Christian, even if you describe yourself as such.
I'm not sure that's a catastrophic problem.
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