"Race of the future", people think we will all become "the same race".

You've heard this sort of thing before. The idea that we're all going to become the same race. We're all going to look alike.

Since we're on the subject of race a lot lately. Why not?

I don't like a lot of the thoughts related to this. I think they're silly. For one, I think no matter how many people "mix", there will already exist different races, because race doesn't exist to begin with. This sort of talk seems to make the assumption that currently there are truly 3 or 4 or 5 different distinct groups or "races". When there aren't, there's barely any difference between humans on the physical side. People wouldn't "all become one race", people are already for the most part, one race, to begin with. And since this is true, it doesn't matter how much people mix seed and egg, people will find all sorts of things to have prejudice against. People will just come up with new races and the like. The talk contrary, implies that there's something to these races that would go away if everybody mixed. There isn't, so therefor there wouldn't be. It would just stay the same.

Secondly, you get the assertion that this would cause everyone to look the same. Which gets all the separatists types to use this to say that mixing itself is a bad direction for people. That it's a movement towards genocide and the end of diversity. And others saying it would be good because people wouldn't discriminate based upon race. But they're wrong. The latter are wrong, because the concept could easily live on, because of what I said earlier. There's nothing tangible here already to make disappear. People would likely just create new racial concepts just equally as stupid as the terms and ideas we have now. And the racial separatist types are wrong, because if there's anything I've seen, it's that all this does is create individuals that be born a variety. Black parents already can and do give birth to stereotypically European children, blonde hair and all. And that would happen would be that this would happen on a larger scale. You'd still have blondes and plenty of people that look like all of the stereotypical European qualities, and ect.

But this all also made me curious, since people think we're moving toward this, both for and against, how long would it take to happen? I would think thousands of years at this rate. And what the heck would we look like, on average? There might not be a phenotype to ever go away, but might we have the tendency towards certain ones? Most people in the world right now are Chinese and Indians. Would most human beings thousands of years from now, largely remind people of our culture of Asians?

It's a curious thought. I wonder if people will be annoyed and offended by this topic, though.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:37:42 PM by Ukonkivi

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I think you'll get increased exogamy, with different trends in different places.

The future might well see certain races mix en masse in certain areas, but not necessarily all races blending into one. We might well get interesting new combo clusters, though.

edited 10th Jun '11 3:24:26 AM by MRDA1981

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My agreements.

Racial mixing has actually been going on since antiquity (albeit differently in different places). Features will certainly shift around and mix in the gene pools, but we wouldn't all look the same. That and prominence of different features will always differ across the globe.

Long story short, the world won't become one gene pool. We'd still be distinct (albeit overlapping) gene pools divided by region, and people will on average look different depending on where they live, as it has been since antiquity.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

I like my planet having full of World Of Hat's...as for if it ever will happen...maybe or maybe not, most likely not. There are still tons of people who prefer their own race when it comes to mating, even if they have no problem making friends with members of the other races.

And there will always be people who mix racial issues in with nationalism.

As for how long it will take for all of us to become a single race...likely never, or if it will, long after my grandchildren are dead.

---

How people define the term "race" is also a big factor too btw. And the extent people define different races. For example, some people consider irish, british, french, etc. individual races. While others define "White" or "Black" as a race.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:24:09 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

It depends, are supposing a single earth future, or a multiple worlds where humans spread out?

I agree with that.

Well, whatever one can call a "race" has certainly been mixing since the beginning of any diversity.

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Have we even found any planets capable of supporting life yet?...close enough for us to mass transfer civilians to live in that is.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I for one am against completely destroying every culture in the world except one. Maybe that makes me weird.

"Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste."

I don't see destroying the current races and cultures as dealing with the problem of prejudice and people being assholes...It may get rid of one source of it for a while, but people will find other things and hell this may cause more problems somehow.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

That's not what "mixing" means.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

With generations of mixing on a global scale, it's what it would cause.

"Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste."

I'm not for destroying cultures. I love different cultures so much I'm pretty well considerable a Conservative of sorts.

Though I think everyone in the world could mix and all of the cultures would still be preserved.

Phenotypes, are a curiously different matter. I suppose parts of culture related to phenotypes would or could change.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:40:31 PM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

x6

Don't necessarily need planets, could just be space stations, mining ships, and isolation through that means, or some others.

What would be REALLY interesting is if it were a parallel Earth thing, where people traveled to uninhabited Earth's instead.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:41:15 PM by blueharp

The thread is about "race", i.e. genetical descent, not about culture.

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A one race world would be just as uninspiring as a one culture world....granted, like I mentioned before, that's nearly impossible due to several factors, our lack of solid definition for different races being one.

^^ Relying on space stations seem kinda risky though...granted they'll be better and better, but I can't help but think that there will be lots and lots of casualties in the first few millenias if humans start living in space stations.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:46:43 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

The two often go hand in hand. There's a reason why European and Native American culture is so different, for instance. Or, if you want to go with the other definition of race, Germanic culture is so different to Slavic culture.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:48:17 PM by SoberIrishman

"Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste."

Think of how many people have died due to weather on Earth.

Yeah.

To admit my personal opinion, I would only want for all culture to become the same, if all of the gems of diverse culture throughout the world managed to remain intact.

And for that to happen, culture would have to not be a one way road of spread. And the language of the world would become huge, supermassive. With thousands and thousands of words, and thousands and thousands of characters.

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Basically all of Germany east of the Elbe is Slavs Germanified during the 12-14th century, so, yeah, no. Race has no real factor in culture, nation, anything. There have always been assimilations, migrations, separations etc. There is no such thing as a "pure" nation or culture anyway.

edited 9th Jun '11 5:52:03 PM by Octo

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Admittedly, race isn't a very good word to begin with. And there's not much reason to support the idea that Asian is more of a race than Slavic.

The mere fact we ever started using it to mean something beyond culture, ethnicity, and nationality, was an unfortunate development in my opinion. Though that's a discussion somewhat removed from this thread.

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I think that in the future, genetic diversity might actually increase: if genetic manipulation becomes commonplace, I would expect that different groups would choose to optimize for different qualities and different aesthetics.

But of course, all of this would be rather different from the old-times notion of "race" — among other things, nothing would prevent people from modifying their children so that they belong to another "group" if they wish so, so I'd expect that families with children with wildly different phenotypes would become rather commonplace.

This raises a few ethical concerns — mostly about which sort of modifications are ethically possible — but I think that diversity is on the way in, not on the way out.

edited 9th Jun '11 9:21:22 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

The thing about cultures is that they "destroy" themselves through slow change irrespective of external influence.

There are probably two good ways to preserve a culture, and we should ideally be doing both:

• Media records, be they in writing, audio, video, whatever.
• Keeping the significance and meaning of a cultural thing while allowing for natural change.

I mean, if large elements of a wide variety of cultures were wiped out, that would sure suck. But history shows evidence that actively trying to destroy an entire culture is nigh impossible. What change do we have of destroying cultures when we're too busy studying and enjoying them?

Scandinavians, Germans, Austrians, Celts, the English, the Dutch, North Americans, New Zealanders and Australians are all, legitimately, members of a Germanic culture of some description. At least. Other countries are less overtly Germanic, but still have that influence.

This is basically central to north-western Europe, plus the colonial nations.

Well, I would argue that many cultures do travel in the pocket of their associated race. As you point out, however, that doesn't denote any kind of exclusivity.

edited 9th Jun '11 11:40:43 PM by MadassAlex

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I disagree on both counts. If a culture is worth preserving, it doesn't help being preserved.

Fight smart, not fair.

Ahem

The Celts were innately their own cultural group, and eventually got influenced by Germanics thanks to Anglo-Saxon and Danish settlement and such.

edited 9th Jun '11 10:37:17 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Mainland European Celts predate Irish, Scottish and Welsh settlement. As far as my knowledge goes, we can place the earliest known Celtic settlement in Austria.

Celts are Germanic in the same way Anglo-Saxons are — mostly ethnically. The Celts certainly developed their own distinct cultures and languages, but it is thought that they share origins with eastern Germanic tribes. Celts as we tend to know them (in those territories that skirt Britain) are probably the way they are because of the body of water separating their lands from mainland Europe. While interaction between mainland Europe and the lands that are the modern UK was regular, the Celts did experience a degree of isolation that would've insulated them and prevented some degree of inteference. Remember that we do, to some degree, consider the Germanic tribes that remained in central Europe as somewhat homogenous.

The Celts did, obviously, become distinct from the central European Germanic tribes. But, as an ethnic term, "Germanic" does describe the Celts.

In theory, anyway. We do know that the ancient Germanic tribes and ancient Celtic tribes considered eachother worthy adversaries which meant there was an early cultural split. But it's important to draw the distinction between culture and ethnicity.

Which is why I do not mean to imply that Celts are the same as their central European equivalents, but they're quite obviously related.

EDIT: Bah, going by my previous post, I just contradicted myself. So be it. But it is thought that the Celts are Germanic in origin, and therefore are a part of the Germanic sphere of influence.

edited 9th Jun '11 10:55:23 PM by MadassAlex

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