h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's not my fault people can't communicate themselves properly. Racial issues are a sensitive topic, and should be approached with the utmost care. If the benefit of the doubt *is* given, then the person is still in the wrong, just for not being careful with the way they put things across.

"Well the question has to be asked : what logical person still thinks about interracial relationships?"

What, you want a list?

- A person who lives in an area where such a relationship may cause a serious social problem
- The parent, sibling or friend of someone starting such a relationship for the first time
- Someone who has just had the question put to them by someone else, and who honestly hasn't thought about it before (e.g. a child with a school assignment to do)
- Someone with a political axe to grind, on either side (pro OR anti)
- Someone who just wants to stir a reaction, and who doesn't actually care one way or the other.

Will that lot do for starters? Oh, yes, and of course "racists", but I'm assuming you've filled in that one at the top of the list and didn't consider the others. And before you say "ah but racists aren't logical people", don't dismiss them so easily. Creationists aren't logical people either, but that doesn't make it safe to ignore them.

"Hoo, why ask the last question?"

I would have thought it obvious.

1. Provocation. Pure and simple mischief. But also...
2. To make you think.

"Doesn't make sense to me."

It makes MORE sense than banning interracial relationships, which was the point I was trying to make. Making interracial relationships compulsory actually has some scientific justification (although not much). Just wanted to make the point that if you're going to legislate relationships, there's only one scientifically sensible way to go...

"First of all, it would be a breach of human rights."

Yeah, right, like that matters. Your rights are what the government says they are. Do you have a right free speech? No. Not if that speech incites racial hatred, for instance. Do you have a right to freedom of religious worship? No. Not if that worship includes sacrifice of animals. Do you have a right to freedom of association? No. Not if that association is banned under the Criminal Justice Act. Rights are an illusion (lunch rights doubly so...)

"No one has a right to dictate who you have children with."

And nobody has a right to have children, either. That particular "right" is an illusion brought on by 25 years of IVF technology. And the government "has the right" to tell you what to do in all circumstances - it has the right because it has the POWER. If they want to, they can tell you to join the army, and they can put you in jail or even shoot you when you refuse. That they don't is a factor of circumstance, nothing to do with what you call your "rights" and everything to do with a period of relatively stability and peace in Europe.

"Secondly, what is my ethnicity? I am white, yeh sure. But what branch of white? I could be anything."

I'm sure you could. But you couldn't be black, or oriental, or Asian. So there's three ethnicities you could pick a father from if you wanted to breed.

(Note: I'm talking purely about reproduction here, not relationships, in the spirit of the original query and to keep this purely scientific as much as possible).

"It depends how detailed you'd like to go. I find it increasingly difficult as I get older, to class people by their race"

I'm sure you'd have NO trouble walking out into the street RIGHT NOW and within seconds pointing out someone who is of a DIFFERENT ethnic group to you.

"if I had to start choosing people based on that fact, I would give up, and become celibate"

And what a waste that would be...

H.

Exactly. You may have difficulty pinning down someone's race, but not the fact that they're of a different origin to you.

So Hoo, if you couldnt breed with your own ethnic group, who could the cross-breed offspring breed with? Would they be banned from breeding with both their root ethnic groups?

So Hoo, if you couldnt breed with your own ethnic group, who could the cross-breed offspring breed with? Would they be banned from breeding with both their root ethnic groups?

Hmm, they'd have to breed with a completely separate life form of course...

How about a super intelligent shade of the colour blue for starters...

Well Hoo, there are some circumstances where the law tells you who not to have children with! Fathers and daughters, for instance!

As PYT hasn't showed up in this thread since the first page, maybe it's time to gracefully bring it to a close?

Just thopught I'd pop my head into the thread to point out the pitfalls of thinking about race:

I am, to any casual observor, and the census form, White English.

However, the Norman, Saxon and Jewish blood that's in there rather makes a mockery fo that.

I seem to remember someone saying once that if the BNP were serious about pure blooded Britons only, most of their members would be on the next boat out the country if they got elected.

Having read the remarks that PYT has made in his/her other conversations, I have come to the conclusion that this researcher enjoys being rude and insulting. For this reason, I have come out of super-lurk mode to suggest that he/she be totally ignored. People like this just want to push buttons and create havoc.

*wanders in, looks at title of thread, is bemused*

S'funny, I always thought I was a member of the human race and one of the many ethnicities. Homo sapiens (or should that be Homer Coachpotatous).


*wanders out again*

"So Hoo, if you couldnt breed with your own ethnic group, who could the cross-breed offspring breed with? Would they be banned from breeding with both their root ethnic groups?"

Good question. Like I say, if everyone were barred from having children with someone from your own ethnic group, within a three or four generations you'd have to look hard to find someone who looked different enough from you for you to be allowed to father/bear their child.

It's about now I'd like to recommend everyone reads "The Forever War", an angry science fiction parable about Vietnam written by Vietnam veteran Joe Haldeman, and winner of the 1976 Hugo award for Best Novel.

The plot concerns an interstellar war. Because the soldiers spend so much time travelling close to lightspeed, time dilation effects occur - which means although they're only away from home for a few months, years have passed on Earth. They don't recognise the society they return to, so they sign up again. And again.

Without giving too much away, on their final return to Earth they find the war is over, and that the population of earth is racially homogeneous after centuries of global travel and interbreeding. It's a possible future.

Personally, I think I'd miss cultural diversity. But is that really all it's cracked up to be?

(ZSF: while this conversation *might* have been started by someone with nasty intentions, that's no reason to suppose it can't be hijacked into something interesting and worth discussing, is it? )

H.
Thread hijacker and bigot confuser.

Considering the mixtures that were the result of various invaders in different places in the world in the past, perhaps it's quite surprising that distinct racial characteristics have been sustained so long. I'm thinking of genetic traits like the intolerance to alcohol mentioned earlier.
Some people have a problem if they move to a different part of the world, eating a diet their system is not attuned to digesting effectively & exposed to a new climate and so on. This can lead to health problems that they would not have experienced in their 'homeland'.
So I can see some arguments for maintaining the genes that have evolved to cope with a particular environment, within that environment. However, mixing the gene pool should hopefully lead to people being more adaptable & able to cope better in variable conditions.

I tried very caefully not to leap to any conclusions when the question was first added - which is easy for me because I'm white (in fact I'm so white I get fan mail from South Africans - they used to call me bleach legs on the football pitch) Since then a lot of people who enjoy being inflammatory have leapt in getting all righteous because someone has raised a taboo question.

Hoo is right to say that there could be a genuine question behind this so lets wait and see.

(Incidently The Forever War is brilliant, but don't be misled into buying the rest of the Haldeman books, only 2 or 3 come near to standard.)

Hoo.



*waits for the Second Coming*

I think you'll find that if you read ANY of Purdy Young Thing's convos/entries you will not find one that is not insulting or derogitory to people while (I'll presume from the name that they're a she) hides under this veil of believing in 'freedom of speech'...

No where, of course, is there freedom of speech but merely freedom of opinion..

This is a case of someone using a positive phrase as a method of winning arguements and forcing their views onto people...

...Bearing mind of course that this is MY opinion based upon the wording of the original question and the user's personality and attitude's in other convos...

it was "breeding" that I was going to object to, but I thought that might come across as homophobic

I must say I'm disappointed that the first post has been successfully yikesed.

Silencing bigots (if indeed PYT is such - he hasn't even bothered to come back and respond ) is NOT the way to go.

If you just shut them up, you reinforce their feelings of righteous persecution. You actually make them think they're right by attacking them in that way. (see the BNP candidates in Burnley in 2001, ostentatiously wearing gags on the stage at the announcement of the count because they'd been denied some right to speak)

It's MUCH better to let them talk, then just answer them, calmly, logically and sensibly. They HATE that!

H.

Huh? First post dissapeared earlier today but is now back,or is that just on my page