Making the news today....

[tree-fancier123]

2 hours ago, AHPP said:

 

Yes. And people have a right to be who they are, closer to or further from animals or possessing more or less of any other characteristic. Birds of a feather flock together, which generally works. Africans scrat about mud huts for food and dancing. Londoners scrat about Canary Wharf for money and Porsches. Both peoples are surrounded by others with similar outlooks, goals, needs, wants etc so people understand each other and are able to get on and interact with relatively similar and equal understandings and demands of each other.

 

The other way to look at it is to use intelligence as a metric. James Watson, half of the Watson and Crick known for discovering DNA brought up the issue a few years ago. 

In 2007, the scientist, who once worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, told the Times newspaper that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".

 

And people have a right to be who they are? 

Hmmm this bit is something cultural and not biological. Primates inc sapiens dont have rights to food water shelter poetry music - its stuff in the environment that they possibly can get if they can overcome competition and physical difficulties

 

I agree with James Watson, except for a slight nuance, intelligence is part nature (the genes, inhereted neuronal bio computational innate ability) and part nurture (learning from others in the environment)

I personally dont think blacks and brown skinned people from Asia and Africa are less well endowed than caucasians with cerebral circuitry, otherwise how did all the asians end up running Microsoft Google et al. Admittedly more Indians than golliwogs, maybe the gollies have not evolved to the same complexity as the Anglo Saxons.

Even a five grand computer is useless without software. Program the jamjar golli and it will execute with the best of them

[AHPP]

19 hours ago, Steven P said:

Anyway... just a passing musing... I am wondering if the intelligence tests were western or European based? Couple of examples from past lives, one company was doing tests to see if we fitted our roles well (really working out redundancies... but will go official line) - standard test for us all, my day to day work fitted the test perfectly, girl from another department - accounts or something - had never done anything similar - so I was marked down as better where it was just experience. Second one goes back to school days - maths - I could do sums, some kids couldn't... until they were asked to work out the premier league table.. and they could do it instantly - no less clever, just less interested. So going back again, I wonder if the Africans are just as clever, but the tests were asking the wrong things?

 

Good question. Don't know. You'd hope he'd have addressed that in the research (and the people whose research he relied on did too) or they'd be just as guilty of peddling weak science as the people who wailed and gnashed teeth at him. I've not read the whole thing. Now it's buried in the canceling.

 

There's no such thing as right or wrong in this instance. It's just suitability for your environment. If you compete for money at Canary Wharf, you need to be western intelligent. If you want to find water and eat the right berries in Limpopo, you might need to be African intelligent.

 

Anecdotally, I nearly always find blacks thick. I think like a westerner though of course.

Edited August 7 by AHPP

[AHPP]

31 minutes ago, tree-fancier123 said:

And people have a right to be who they are? 

Hmmm this bit is something cultural and not biological. Primates inc sapiens dont have rights to food water shelter poetry music - its stuff in the environment that they possibly can get if they can overcome competition and physical difficulties

 

I agree with James Watson, except for a slight nuance, intelligence is part nature (the genes, inhereted neuronal bio computational innate ability) and part nurture (learning from others in the environment)

I personally dont think blacks and brown skinned people from Asia and Africa are less well endowed than caucasians with cerebral circuitry, otherwise how did all the asians end up running Microsoft Google et al. Admittedly more Indians than golliwogs, maybe the gollies have not evolved to the same complexity as the Anglo Saxons.

Even a five grand computer is useless without software. Program the jamjar golli and it will execute with the best of them

 

In western legal systems, rights are broadly based on an ability to own oneself and advocate for a property right to yourself. That's why animals don't have rights, don't have a legal personality etc (so you have to set up a trust with a human trustee if you want to leave everything to your cat). I asked a while ago on here, probably in this thread when someone was calling someone racist, what they define racism as. I define it as when you think a certain group of people are unworthy or incapable of self ownership. If they fall below the threshold of being human in a legal ish sense. So you can dislike blacks, Indians, whoever as much as you like but you're not a racist until you think they can be owned as property because they're not capable of being their own property.

 

I find generally blacks are thick and Asians are clever (though unfortunately dishonest with it). I always take the time to speak to blacks I cross paths with and see if I can find a spark of European style intellect. I've never even got as far as I did with Oldfeller up the page. I don't think they're programmable.

[Steven P]

Exactly that if you measure intelligence by a spreadsheet you will fail if your intelligence is knowing what roots, berries and animals will kill you. Can't say either is better than the other, just applied to different skills.

[AHPP]

My favourite bit of television on race relations btw. And the whole series is good anyway. It's the same recycled plots as all the other legal drama/comedies like Rumpole, Silk etc, set in the 1990s, with excellent music and pop culture references.

 

 

Edited August 6 by AHPP

[tree-fancier123]

worst fires for 50 years in France, parts of UK must be at risk too, no rain on forecast for next fortnight

[Steven P]

Said before... they can have some of our rain... Quite scary if they are talking about the UK as well - 'wild fires' always reported as a thing far far away (Spain, Australia, California) - the UK isn't set up to deal with wild fires.

[Capetown]

On 05/08/2025 at 17:39, Steven P said:

 

Hush now, he is only knarky that this government has gone behind the Brexiteers backs and actually talked nice to the EU, and the French

How about playing the ball and not the player Steven P?

[Steven P]

1 hour ago, Capetown said:

How about playing the ball and not the player Steven P?

 

Normally, yes, but the one you quoted was following the natural flow of the conversation. I could have written it less succinctly but made the same point:

 

"those that voted for Brexit, the Brexiteers, would never accept a solution involving 'making a deal' with the French and the EU, it would mean breaking that sacred vow that all things EU are evil, should not be tolerated. All trade and world diplomacy should be directed away from the continent. Rwanda is a case in point where a civilised country, like the UK, actively supports sending the desperate to a country renowned for its genocide and human rights abuses"...but I think my original way was better and more to the point.

[Mark J]

UK passport database images used in facial recognition scans • The Register

WWW.THEREGISTER.COM

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updated: Campaigners brand Home Office’s lack of transparency as ‘astonishing’ and ‘dangerous’