191–200 of 357 posts
Like the time some team tried to evolve an FPGA net to solve some problem efficiently with a genetic algorithm and it learned to use a bunch of FPGA transistors as an antenna to communicate with another part of FPGA chip through interference. Unfortunately, it would not work on other FPGA chips even from the same lot.
Please forgive me for asking a controversial question (particularly so early in the morning), but if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? Is the idea that black people have greater bone mineral density (per TFA) due to social or environmental causes (e.g., diet)? For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch egalitarian and I don’t see that changing eithe…
IMO it's because it's very dubious the AI is doing what the paper is maintaining it's doing. People are not 'race x' or 'race y' biologically, as if race is some discrete set of features common to a whole population. Every individual has a set of biological features inherited from their ancestors which, theoretically, could include any or all so-called 'races'. Human beings have a continuum of features that is heavil…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're missing the point. "Race" is an attempt to put people with different biological traits into 'buckets' but in reality there's variation, overlap, and blurry lines that make any sort of classification a social approximation at best. No one is going to argue that you get your traits from your ancestors and that regional groups have similar traits due to shared ancestry, it's the classification itself that…
I strongly dislike (almost despise) this argument. Race is a surrogate variable for genetic history. The classification itself indeed matches with reality, as it is generally made on ancestry. Approximation it may be, imperfect it may be, construct it may be, but its utility is very much real. Attempts to handwave it away do not change the fact that race and genetics are very much linked as it is used today.
Where's the utility in that?
Please forgive me for asking a controversial question (particularly so early in the morning), but if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? Is the idea that black people have greater bone mineral density (per TFA) due to social or environmental causes (e.g., diet)? For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch egalitarian and I don’t see that changing eithe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're missing the point. "Race" is an attempt to put people with different biological traits into 'buckets' but in reality there's variation, overlap, and blurry lines that make any sort of classification a social approximation at best. No one is going to argue that you get your traits from your ancestors and that regional groups have similar traits due to shared ancestry, it's the classification itself that…
I agree, but is it accurate to say that our concept of race amounts to labeling different clusters in an N-dimensional space (where the dimensions are largely biological traits)? I.e., while labeling clusters always entails some amount of approximation (clusters are inherently nebulous), we still label clusters because it's useful. For example, the boundaries between languages are imprecise, but we still bin/label th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Race in the context of physical differences does not map to the social concepts of race. For example, US documents usually include Latino as a possible race, even though Latin Americans are white, black, indigenous Americans, or a mix - and Spaniards are what usually would be classified as white. If you check older forms you'd see Italians and Irish people categorized as a different (non white) category, etc.
Race is distinct from Nationality. "Latino" is not a synonym for citizens of Latin American countries, but the name of a racial group which originated from that region of the world. It gets confusing with countries like China, Japan, and India, which are more racially homogeneous, and where the country name is the same as the (common) name of the predominate racial groups.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Race in the context of physical differences does not map to the social concepts of race. For example, US documents usually include Latino as a possible race, even though Latin Americans are white, black, indigenous Americans, or a mix - and Spaniards are what usually would be classified as white. If you check older forms you'd see Italians and Irish people categorized as a different (non white) category, etc.
Race is distinct from Nationality. "Latino" is not a synonym for citizens of Latin American countries, but the name of a racial group which originated from that region of the world. It gets confusing with countries like China, Japan, and India, which are more racially homogeneous, and where the country name is the same as the (common) name of the predominate racial groups.
It really isn’t. Where are you getting this idea from?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I understand, race is a social construct doesn't mean that there can be no physical differences. After all, humans have been able to tell* what race someone is with their stupid human eyes. It's making a claim the important aspects of race are a social construct. If the defining physical differences between races is both melanin and sternum width, that doesn't seem to be more relevant than just skin melanin…
> humans have been able to tell* what race someone is with their stupid human eyes. It's more that humans have been able to define , with significant disagreements, what race someone is with their stupid human eyes. Race is nothing but a collection of these judgments. I'm not brown because I'm black, I'm black because I'm brown.
Sorry, that's also true.
My asterisk was talking more about the inability to visually tell the difference in many cases. The black people in America who could pass as white in the 1950's (or now). Or how Latino and Middle-Eastern people often get confused. There are numerous cases, both specific and general.
But yes, it's not an objective truth being measured, and I'm sorry if I implied otherwise.