Why has Social Justice and Feminism become such Pervasive Topics?

Except we can’t take them out of human hands, because human hands write the code behind the AI.

Humans will still have to determine what counts as an “appropriately designed AI”, so humans are still the ones deciding.

Even if could develop an AI able to design itself, the AI would be effectively human and thus we’d have changed nothing.

Mod edit: removed unnecessary and personal jab

Edited by nombretomado on Nov 3rd 2018 at 11:29:28 AM

What a perfect thread for a question I have.

I believe everyone here has heard the term 'Blackwashing' which popped in prominence after that british history animation and some (diverse) casting choices in some shows set in ancient europian history. From one side there are people who insist that ancient Europa was overwhelmingly white, while others say that Europa was far more diverse than believed. But most discussions turn into shitslinging. So maybe someone knows any research on medieval demographics? And I mean actually legitimate stuff - don't throw at me works with only legitimacy derived from opinions of its supporters.

This is the first I've heard of the term, and I assume it is more empty No, You-style projection from the far-right.

Maybe, but it's not what care about right now. Medieval demographics - still interested. Anyone?

Take it from Professor Mary Beard, who talked about it beforehand. Roman empire also spanned a bunch of Africa for most of its existence, after all.

Edited by Gaon on Nov 4th 2018 at 6:07:36 AM

And, it wasn't wasn't just the Roman Empire that was a rainbow: the Venetian Republic kept the good, old Roman tradition of only caring if you had sufficient land, shares in a fleet and/or ships of your own with a bank account (that at least looked) big enough (on paper) to accommodate the lot and at least a trusted representative to cast your vote by proxy if you were away on business alive and well. Also, dodge your taxes in appropriate ways only, while never dragging the good name of Venice down publicly: we're not like those dodgy, slimy Genoese (just as cosmopolitan) who break trade agreements left and right (slander, liable and lies).

Yeah, Italian xenophobia in the middle ages was more like radical football fans: you'd get beaten up depending on shifting city rivalries more than anything else. Or, you know, if you were Jewish or some other dodgy religion/ sect currently on the shit-list.

And, Venice had rather extensive connections across the entire Silk Route (including the sea arm of it), some of which settled on the Venetian end, either in the City itself, or in its various holdings across the Med.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Nov 4th 2018 at 2:35:52 PM

When it comes to medieval demographics, it really depends on what part of Europe you're talking about. Southern and South-Eastern Europe would have more diversity in terms of "race" than Northern Europe, but it's important to realize that our modern concept of race didn't come to exist until fairly recently. Religion was considered to be of far greater importance than race in medieval Europe, so for an Anglo-Saxon in the 9th century, a Swedish Pagan hailing from Gotland would be regarded as "more foreign" than a Christian Arab hailing from Damascus.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Nov 4th 2018 at 10:21:34 AM

@Gaon. But what about Eastern Europe tho? Anyone knows. Because honestly, the biggest salt at Race Lift come if the character is from Eastern Europe.

See The Witcher.

To come back to the Main Topic and don't get modded.

How much Dude On Distress is used to "lift up" a female heroine?

Edited by KazuyaProta on Nov 4th 2018 at 9:51:42 AM

The Balkans had a fair mix. Heck, just look at the Rom: South-East Asian. Look at the Mongols: Central Asian. Just look at most of the Arctic region which trickled southwards: Northern Asian.

Race as we perceive the concept today basically started with Portuguese and Spanish paranoia about the dreaded Moors staging a reconquest of their precious, precious, hard-won, totally fantastic Christian lands (and, the Jews are their spies and enablers, of course!)... as well as the Iberian peninsula's increasing economic dependency on (and "modernisation" and ramping up of) chattel slavery (particularly from Africa).

With a major catch: because of how their empire was shaking out, British and Irish, Eastern and Northern European slaves became thinner on the ground, but African and American slaves became "easier" to catch, buy and find.

It's a darned sight easier to tell who is "below" you in the pecking order if you decide that all people with very brown skin tones simply must be converted slaves who can never be trusted because they're not Really Christian™ but Dreaded Moors™ just pretending to be so they can Rise Up and Cause Havoc.

White skin tones, well... they were obviously Christians from the start (by the C14th, paganism was pretty darned rare and enslaving Christians was frowned on) , so it was good old Christian charity to free them!

Edited by Euodiachloris on Nov 4th 2018 at 3:17:29 PM

I just want to say I'm very grateful to this site and others like it for helping be more understanding in certain things regarding race, gender, sexual orientation and other topics that I wasn't educated on or as thoroughly as I grew up. There are times when I've wondered if we'd ever get farther than we are now when it comes to certain prejudices that need to be abolished. But I do see we make advances and I hope it continues. And I do like to think part of the media we're exposed to helps with that. Especially in my country which still has a ways to go in certain areas like feeding the poor and LGBT rights. One of the reasons why I've gone into the creative writing field is because of being shown how media can influence people however small.

Ugh! I won't hold it back, that article is garbage. I asked for more tangible evidence. That was mostly 'Were they black? Dunno. But maybe.' All it said was that north africans and levantines moved to Britain.

Maybe my question now should be what race were north africans during roman times?

What about Witcher?

As it's been previously pointed out, the definition of race as we know it is a fairly modern concept. You're not going to find many ancient texts saying anything like "then a bunch of black people came to Britain" because they wouldn't be thought of as Black, they'd be thought of as "Roman" (and/or Christian). Meaning you're basically down to genetic study of skulls, which is always a rough time given we have relatively few preserved bodies of that period and the study of African lineage in ancient Britain is a very recent endeavor. But here is a The Independent article about archeological findings on skulls of African-descended men in Roman Britain. Here's a genetic study linking a Yorkshiree clan to African genes.

Awww, yeah! Concrete scientific research. Only apropriate extrapolations. That's the stuff.

Race only started to be codified in the way it currently is from around the C16th. And, it was only in the C19th that it became "science".

Religion was the important determination before that, followed by language and city/state/liege.

Both Roman citizenship and conversion to Christianity came with a change of name to denote affiliation. Which... would "hide" the later-defined race of the person who changed their name from those writing histories.

Heck, a lot of names of African, Celtic, Gallic, Persian and Indian philosophers got Latinised or Greeked because the Greco-Roman world was supremely biased against other languages, so routinely "corrected" barbaric, ugly words to something "more civilised". Regardless if the religion or citizenship status of the person. :/

In short, we have no idea as to the colour of the skins of important, historically recorded individuals... because speaking Greek or Latin was seen as waaaaaaaaay more important.

You wrote off an expert in the field because article wasn't published in The Lancet under genetic breakthroughs? Whatevs, dude. <_<

Edited by Euodiachloris on Nov 4th 2018 at 6:05:30 PM

The issue was that, while it was clear from historical records that people originating from all over the empire could be found in Roman Britain, that doesn't really tell us much about their ethnic background, since many families originating from Italy could be found in the outer provinces of the empire. Genetic studies provide evidence that this wasn't the case; that's what turns a maybe into a probably.

No, I dismissed an article which contained no concrete data when I requested exactly that. And such mangling of what I said is perfect example why so many people see PC movement as pervasive and toxic. Try not to do that else you'll end up pushing neutral individuals away from you towards right side!

To rest of you, thanks for information and arguments. I see that my view on medieval and especially roman demographics need slight reconsideration.

Asking for concrete society wide data for a non-modern period of history is asking for a bit much. Especially when speaking in reference to a concept that didn’t exist during the time period.

We don’t have concrete data for the demographics of some modern countries, the demographics of the Roman Emoire and medieval Europe are as such obviously going to be educated guesswork.

Edited by Silasw on Nov 4th 2018 at 10:42:35 AM

This is exactly like white people trying to police black people by telling them, "Stop fighting hate with hate!"

I'm really questioning your actual interest in social justice, considering you came here and immediately asked for proof of racial diversity in medieval Europe (while using the right-wing trope of "blackwashing" as your launching point), dismissed a source from an expert because it wasn't "concrete evidence," and then responded to someone's bafflement at your dismissal of proof with this attempt to justify people's hatred of social justice, and telling us that we're the reason people fall for right-wing propaganda.

Edited by SciFiSlasher on Nov 4th 2018 at 4:27:30 AM

As someone who is on the road to becoming an expert in a field (biology), I think there's a fine line between healthy skepticism and use of critical thinking even when it comes to expert opinions and ignoring experts because their point of view is not in agreement with your own.

I'm not a mind reader, so I don't presume to know what @Prany was thinking, but the way they phrased their objection to Dr. Beard makes me rather wary.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Nov 4th 2018 at 8:34:02 AM