Drudge Report: "Whites No Longer Majority by 2042"
Whites will cease being the majority by 2042, the Census Bureau reported, to which I reply, "So what?" Human life is what matters, not the fiction of racial differences. From the story:
In a new report out Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau projects the nation will become much more diverse by midcentury, with minorities forecast to become the majority population by 2042, experts said.We will also be aging:
Census officials also expect the nation's population to grow older, projecting that by 2050 one in five Americans will be age 65 and olderYea, well I'll be there long before that.
I may be getting older, but I still hope to live to see the day when we stop keeping track of race because it simply doesn't matter.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:37 PM
21 Comments
21 Comments:
Well said Wesley. It has been shown that most similar or exact DNA sequences can correlate to various racial groups around the world. In other words my closest genetic match could be anywhere from China to Peru.
Wesley, did you ever write about Will Saletan's essay "All God's Children", where he emphatically called for use of genetic engineering to increase the intelligence of racial groups? He wrote:
Don't tell me those Nigerian babies aren't cognitively disadvantaged. Don't tell me it isn't genetic. Don't tell me it's God's will. And in the age of genetic modification, don't tell me we can't do anything about it.
We need a law against genetic modification.
John: I hadn't seen it. I'll check it out when I get a moment to take a breath. Thanks.
Of course by 2042 are we going to tell what races people are even if we wanted to? Since mixed-color couples aren't so taboo anymore, multiracial children have been having their own children, totally upsetting characteristics you'd look for in trying to pinpoint a race. I had a beautiful co-worker who was light-skinned African-American in appearance, except for her Asian-shaped blue eyes. I think the days of designating race are numbered just because pretty soon no one will know anyway.
Bunch of nonsense.
Hispanics are all races. When I lived in Boston, my adopted Colombian kids were considered white because the school district wanted black white integration...
and it ignores intermarriage, which is ten percent for white/black, but 30percent for Asians and Hispanics.
Are they using the "one drop" rule to make up such statistics?
And I still hope to live to see the day when we stop keeping track of species because it simply doesn't matter.
So Joshua, if I hit a child in my car and kill him, is it the same as hitting a squirrel? No. And you don't really think so either.
Besides, it is offensive to equate human life and oppression against it, with our treatment of animals. If a KKKer did it, we would call it racism.
My opinion of the wrongness (or the lack of wrongness) of killing a child or squirrel has nothing to do with what species the victim belongs to.
It is prejudice to reason that because the child belongs to a different group than the squirrel, it has more inherent value. How can you reason that different group membership conveys a different moral status, even in situtations where the two individuals may be equal in every other way?
You could say that because of the mental properties of the child in comparison to the squirrel, they are morally distinct entities. But that would have to be equally applied to severely retarded children who lack those mental properties or freaky alien squirrels who have those mental properties.
It is just as wrong to treat to equal people differently because of their race as it is to treat two animals differently because of their species. Species and race are only useful designations insofar as they accurately reflect the relevant characteristics of individuals within that group.
So, it may be acceptable to treat Asians with different medication to Caucasians if the groups always differ in their interaction with a certain drug, but in cases where a Caucasian's liver behaves like that of an Asian the rule should be abandoned. Likewise it may be acceptable to treat humans and squirrels differently if they differ in a morally relevant characteristic, but if a human has the mental faculties of a squirrel then this rule should be abandoned.
Speciesism may be based on more real differences than sexism or racism, but it is no less prejudicial nor less morally despicable.
Thanks for your honesty, Joshua: You all see it in print. An animal rights believer thinks animals and humans are morally equal, or that we should have our moral worths measured by our capacities of the moment, a la Peter Singer, which is the end of universal human rights.
Without human exceptionalism, human rights becomes relative. That is wrong, and that is what the discussion of "animal rights" should be about.
In answering your question, Joshua, the proper measurement is by species because human nature, attributes that are hard wired within us, are intrinsicly and profoundly different from those of all other animals.
Yeah, I agree with much of what Peter Singer says. Some parts I disagree with, but his arguments are mostly sound in my opinion.
I don't see what is wrong about rights being based on abilities instead of species. In my opinion, you are just replacing discrimination based on one kind of group - race - with another based on species. I don't really see how 'human supremacism' (which you call 'human exceptionalism') is any better than 'white supremacism' or 'male supremacism'.
Because humans are different than animals. Discrimination against humans is the creation of a false invidious distinction among equals.
And human beings are superior to animals. Name me one animal that could have this conversation, or even conceive of the issues we are discussing. Zero.
Humans are different from animals, and Asian people are different from black people. Those who are equal in a morally relevant way should be treated as moral equals. I contend that some non-human animals are equal to humans in a morally relevant way, such as the ability to be self-aware.
As for that challenge, do you believe that one must pass the Turing Test to be attributed rights? Should a robot be attributed rights if they can pass? Should a mentally retarded human be denied rights if they fail?
Joshua: I don't know what the "turing test" is. And it doesn't matter: No human being should be denied rights for any reason, other than, for example conviction of a crime. No human being should have to earn their moral status by passing a test.
Otherwise, kiss universal human rights goodbye.
Any hypotheticals about AI robots or space aliens are fun, but there must be a firm fire wall between those intellectual musings and how we treat living, breathing human beings.
The Turing Test was designed by Alan Turing as a benchmark for human-level artificial intelligence. Basically, if a computer can have a conversation (say, like the one we are having now) and you can't tell it is a computer, then it is a human-level AI.
Ok, I don't know why rights have to be universal nor specifically human. I don't understand what is so bad about humans being denied rights based on their abilities. We already deny rights, like the right to vote, based on ability (children can't vote, for example, because they haven't the ability to make rational decisions of such weight).
And, in moral philosophy, thought experiments are essential. If your premises lead to undesirable conclusions, that is one way of showing that they need adjustment. Your idea that group membership matters, if that group is species but not if that group is gender or race, is flawed if it leads you to give rights to humans that are otherwise morally equal to a cabbage but to deny rights to non-humans who are otherwise our equals.
A computer is the result of its program. Richard Nixon can have a conversation with you if you go to the Nixon Libarary.
The problem is that you are turning your back on hundreds of years of efforts to eliminate the opporession and exploitation of human beings. You are turning your back on the US Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the UN Declaration of Human Rights! You are willing to instill another form of bigotry against defenseless humans just as pernicious as the old forms based on race or nationalty--just different victims.
And for animals!
I'm a bigot?
You are the one who thinks your group (species) is superior to all others, and irrationally will not acknowledge morally relevant properties of those outside your group.
I'm only calling for just treatment of all things. We should be treating equals equally and unequals unequally, when those equalities are morally relevant. Most humans are moral equals, but there are those (such as human foetuses) that are no more our equal than a squirrel is, except for being of the same biological species as we are rather than merely of the same biological class (Mammalia).
I agree with a lot of the moral progress that has occurred in the 20th century, and would not change it. We are not, however, in an era of perfect ethics (as both your blog and mine point out routinely). Some prejudices are gone (racism, sexism) but others (ageism, speciesism) are more pervasive. Yet you think that speciesism, based on your bigoted anthropocentric viewpoint of human supremacism, is justifiable. And I think species is just as irrelevant as any other group designation, like race.
Yes Joshua, personhood theory is bigotry against some human beings.
I won't call you a bigot because you have not yet been able to see that. If you grasp it, I think you will reject Singerism, which for example, approves of infanticide. In the Netherlands, eugenic infanticide is taking place without meaningful consequence, and the act may soon be legalized. If that isn't bigotry, what is?
At least I hope you will reject it. If you believe it is acceptable to kill an infant because they have a profound disability or are thought to be terminally ill, or because they don't serve the interests of the family, based on either eugenics or personhood theory ideas, well, if the shoe fits...
A computer is the result of its program. - Wesley
so shall we infer from this Wesley that you are not a proponent of Intelligent Design?
After all what would an IDer identify DNA as, if not a complex program created by a supernatural being?
I don't really see how abortion or infanticide or pre-implanation genetic diagnosis or whatever could be called bigoted practices.
I think our argument about bigotry really rests on equality. That is, what similarities are the morally relevant ones.
Human embryos, foetuses and neonates share our human DNA and are part of our species, but they have little in common with our mental faculties.
Great apes, advanced robots and space aliens do not share our DNA and are not part of our species, but they do have the important mental faculties that we do.
You think species trumps those characteristics, whereas I think those characteristics are more important than species.
Now, at least my view is not based on drawing a line around any particular group and saying "members of this group are supreme" , which you have rightly condemned when that group is race but exalt when that group is species. I say all persons are morally equal - regardless of what species they are.
I won't call you a bigot because you have not yet been able to see that. If you grasp it, I think you will reject Singerism
Yes Joshua, if you only understood what Wesley does, then you would think like him and not be a bigot by rejecting all the things about singer you believe in now.
Can someone please explain to me how some animals having more rights than some human beings is not a form of bigotry? Not only is that discrimination against some humans, it would also be discrimination against some animals (if animals had rights).......(c'mon France be reasonable).
"We already deny rights, like the right to vote, based on ability (children can't vote, for example, because they haven't the ability to make rational decisions of such weight)."
All animals would be denied that right too. It's the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that is the real meat. I just need someone to explain to me why some animals (currently apes) should have THOSE rights and not a human baby. I'll even go as far as to say...yes, I'll do it...I'll even go as far as to say that I'd prefer the animal rights theory that all animals are equal and have rights than Joshua's animal farm "some humans and animals are more equal than some humans and animals" theory.
"You think species trumps those characteristics, whereas I think those characteristics are more important than species."
Heh. I think that most humans playing the active role of moral agent trumps no animal playing the role of moral agent. Joshua's agrument is akin to the abortion argument that because some women are raped, abortion should be legal. It's missing the big picture that 99 percent of women have abortions out of convenience. Somehow Joshua misses the big picture that the majority of human babies grow to become moral agents whereas no animal ever will. Like I said in an earlier post, all it takes is one animal. If just one animal ever plays the role of moral agent than by god animals deserve the equal rights and considerations of humans.
I find it sad that some people value apes over babies. Not making an argument, just how I feel.
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