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BEFORE YOU START! there will be at TL
R at the end, in case you (understandably) don't give a fuck about this shit but you still want to know what it is about. And there's a POLL too!
Hello everyone! Ever wondered if migrants are... a nuisance? If they are... bad? Of course you did, all of us think about migrants on daily basis: we love them, we hate them, they are the fellow humans escaping from war and famine, and they are the uncultured animals snatching our wallet in the metro and running over innocents during festivities. Especially in these strange years, we really find talking about them necessary, to say the least. Well, I feel like to discuss a point, a point that is extremely controversial: is being racist a fair point?
Let's be real for a second: if you've been on this site for more than just looksmaxing advice, you almost surely have witnessed some extremely retarded posts or comments against or in favor of racism. Like, not fair point pro/against it, but, snowflakes'/professional racists comments.
So, let's stop the whining and let's begin with the premises: this is an ethical-philosophical and political discussion, with occasional touches of history and social science solely to provide context. This discussion is not a definitive statement, it's not focused on empiricism (social science is used here as a lens for sociological history analysis, not statistical analysis barred some necessary proofs), and thus, the essence of this post is the presentation of a point of view, a perspective I hope will offer you new insights and thoughts (and maybe tell you some interesting anectodes ). Its purpose is to make a debate. Besides, I gotta be thin with the details, 'cause of attention spans, so don't expect very deep dives into the history of society.
Biological racism is, in fact, what is truly meant by the term racism. By definition, racism refers to a set of ideas asserting biological differences among humans, aka "races", thus enabling a distinction between them. If you look up the modern definition, you'll notice it also includes a "historical-cultural" component, but this was added post-WWII in response to Nazi atrocities. Originally, the definition was purely biological, as before the 16th century (or the 1900s, depending on your reference point), distinctions among peoples were solely historical or cultural.
If we consider the 16th century as a starting point, biological racism began to spread as a concept due to two key factors: the expansion of American colonies southward and westward the New World, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Bullshit aside. Positivism, a philosophical-scientific movement founded by Auguste Comte, emphasized empirical observation and the application of the scientific method to understand and improve society. While this approach had transformative changes on many fields, it also provided a framework for the science to classify and rank human populations. Biological racism, as we understand it today, truly crystallized during this era, as scientific concepts were co-opted to support racial hierarchies and justify policies of discrimination.
But don't worry: even if biological races don't exist, racism still has very good points. Actually, the most important point is just a paragraph below: the cultural racism. But before diving into it, let's briefly point out why biological racism is false.
You may have noticed how people tend to share some traits from the nearby zones, like the indo-pacific asians have both almond eyes and black skin (the black chineses). That's because you have to think of human genetics like a gradient of colors on a map, not separate blocks. If you travel from Europe to Africa to Middle-East, there isn't a clear line where one "race" ends and another begins, because people's genetics shift gradually and the changes would be gradual. In other words: if travel from Norway and go all southward, you'll notice how people starts to get blacker the more you travel, gradually.
That's also why genetics can tell us where someone's ancestors likely lived by the way (the "i'm 1% german" meme).
The main claim out of this is that different populations have different IQ, and as you can see it's true. However, the meaning can be misleading.
First, to point the IQ as the only scale of intelligence is wrong. We don't know, for sure, how things work in our brains, and intelligence is one of those things we still don't know. We have several theories about it. For the sake of synthesis, I'll quote the most used model: the "factor g". This model accepts the existence of a general factor for intelligence (g) that determinates the full spectrum of cognitive capacities. Maybe you've heard about "other kinds" of intelligence, like "emotional intelligence" and such. I won't use that theory because it has no empirical proof, even if it's used a lot for pedagogy (Gardner Multiple Intelligences theory).
To explain the "g theory" really fast: the g is an imaginary factor that resembles the total variation of intelligence of an individual, while the IQ is a part of "g" that tries to give the "g" a numerical value in some subcategories based on the tests, like memory, social intelligence, linguistics and so on. The WAIS, the International IQ organization and others usually focus more about the "logical-mathematical" part, because it has a stronger correlation with the "g". In other words: you may as well score a 90 in the IQ test, but still have a high "g" when you do another kind of IQ test, like the emotional intelligence, or vice-versa. Unrelated, but to make an example other than the classic Asperger-guy: think about someone with mental retardation. They score low on IQ test, showing in fact a low capacity in logic, mathematics, cognitive-linguistics. They however have their "emotional intelligence" intact, and since they lack the more analytical side of their intelligence, they rely more on the emotional part, improving it and scoring higher than the average population in the other tests.
We talked about how almost all IQ tests measure problem-solving skills, logic, and memory, but they don't directly measure intelligence. Now, More importantly: IQ is heavily influenced by environment. If a child grows up with poor nutrition, shitty education, stress and/or lack of mental stimulation, their IQ score will likely be lower. Studies have shown that when people are given better education, healthcare and economic stability, their IQ scores rise over time. This is called the "Flynn effect," and it proves that intelligence is not fixed by race but shaped by external conditions.
Mind you: intelligence has a genetic component, far from me to say that intelligence is purely an acquired thing, otherwise people like Ramanujan wouldn't even exist. That doesn't mean, however, that racial differences in IQ are biological. Genetics influence individual traits within a population, not differences between populations. For example, height is influenced by genetics, but the reason dutch people are taller on average than south koreans is mostly because of better nutrition, not because of genetic differences between the two groups. Today, the average QI of south koreans is 108-110, but in the 1950 it was 90. The same with Italy. In less than a century, the IQ improved vastly not because of plain-up mutations, but because of environmental factors.
This does make "races" even more unlikely, given how even in "intelligence genes" it's debunked and everything changes within a century. It is, however, a very good argumentation in the soon-to-come "Cultural Racism" section.
Let's assume that we don't believe the scientists and the genes studies, and let's use history alone. A quite a lot of time ago (i've looked up, wiki says 60.000 years ago), humans spread all around the world with the biggest mass migration of our history, moving from africa to Europe and Asia. Now, assuming that 60.000 was a lot of time ago and things surely changed by now is incredibly stupid, because evolution works in hundreds of thousands of years to make significant changes, and that doesn't include things like the massive trade roads between continents, like the Roman Empire, the Silk Road and the many invasions and mixing. The few things that changed were the most immediate necessities, like the skin color to adapt at the sun.
Now, you can believe in races, i won't argue if you still believe in them. But, most probably, even those who believe in "races" actually believe in something on the line of "selected populations of certain zones of the worlds are plainly and simply animals", not in the races themselves. Maybe they hate haitians because they kill themselves if they don't have the whites stopping them, and literally cook and eat each others (and our dogs and cats if they don't have human flesh around), or maybe they hate the indians because they reek of spices and shit and do dumb things, and insert your least favourite country here because of reason. Some other times, one can't but notice how, wherever the migrants come, the more they are further from the "western standards", the more they are criminals in the country where they are guested.
Instead of saying that people are naturally inferior because of their physical features, now the argument is that their culture is shit. No one that is not a real professional will talk about skull size and atavistic features. Now, it's all about values, social norms and mentalities. The timing wasn't random: after World War II, being openly racist started to be seen as something bad. Now, surely there still were Jim Crow's laws, apartheid, the colonies and all that, no? Yes, but from 1950 onward, the UN started to take distace from these ideas. The reason why segregations and the rest were still accepted and admitted was because of a slow shift of mentality: the colonies were conviced (or because of political reasons) that the locals simply weren't ready for auto-govern themselves; the Jim Crow's laws persisted both because of the same reason prior, and because the people simply didn't like to have the BIPOCs around them sharing the same bus seat, and going against public opinion was a very good way to lose your presidential seat. It didn't help that the blacks were usually in delicate positions (poverty and stuff), and seen as petty criminals. The shift was that cultures are changable: yeah, maybe races aren't a thing, but if so, then that's even worse, because since all the BIPOCs of the getto are criminals, then they purposefully choose to be criminals, they associate with other BIPOCs and commit crimes by choice, those cheeky monkeys.
That above is Cultural Racism at it's peak, and it's the usual forma mentis. And this is where things get complicated.
One of the biggest arguments used by cultural racists is the crime rates among different ethnic or national groups. And here's the inconvenient truth: crime rates do vary between different communities, and not all of it is due to poverty or discrimination.
What's the cause? Left-wing explanations focus on poverty, lack of education, systemic racism and historical oppression, focussing about the social-ambiental reasons. Right-wing explanations put emphasis on cultural factors, like the normalization of violence, weak family structures (on homosexuality and abort as well), and glorification of criminal behavior (through subcultures, like minor gangs and such). If we try to be neutral, the truth is somewhere in between. Take Black American crime rates: It's absolutely undeniable that centuries of racial discrimination and the now relevant economic disparity can lead to criminality, but gang culture, the glorification of crime in the underworld mentality and the lack of police intervention (remember that more police = more money to pay, so spending money for the police to crack down gangs and stuff is expensive too) reinforce the cycle.
Denying the influence of culture is just as wrong as denying the effects of systemic inequality. Cultural values matter a lot. If you grow up in an environment where crime is normalized, where breaking the law is seen as survival or where authorities are viewed as enemies, you're more likely to engage in crime. The answer can't simply be "then just integrate them", because even if true, pushing for integration is, first of all, expensive (police, social programs, schools, finding employment for them, and all that remembering that they don't speak your country's language), and sometimes the forced integration can have the opposite effect, expecially in coutries that already forbid some cultural practices, like the Hijab or the genital mutilation. Some cultures (and subcultures) do a better job than others at discouraging crime and promoting law-abiding behavior, and they simply integrate better and faster the more they embrace your same values or have already good access to a good education and healtcare (eg United Arab Emirates).
One of the strongest arguments in favor of migration is its economic benefits. Migrants contribute to the workforce, fill labor shortages and create businesses that stimulate local economies.
Imagine walking into a grocery store and seeing empty shelves because there aren't enough workers to harvest crops (sounds like slavery ik but it's the plain fact). Imagine trying to book a hospital appointment, only to find that wait times have doubled because there aren't enough nurses (I'm italian and i know this very well). Last but not least: imagine a city where construction projects are left unfinished, forever (still italy, but southern). here simply aren't enough workers willing to take on physically demanding and low-paying jobs. This is a real issue faced by many developed nations today due to declining birth rates, aging population and the de-valuation of study degrees due to growing competition.
Put aside the economy, migrants also enrich the cultures that receive them (i know, talking about "cultural enrichment" sounds like sarcasm, but bare with me). cultural mixing pushes innovation and create social progress: some of the most celebrated cultural movements, like the Renaissance and the Moorish, were the direct result of multicultural societies where ideas from different backgrounds merged to create advancements in science, art and philosophy. If we have to mention modern examples, we could talk about the italians moving in the States, hated by the time they migrated there, but loved now by the italian cuisine, much like we can now appreciate the Doner Kebab and all that. I don't even need to talk about the great minds that migrated from their countries and bringing with them their minds, like the aforementioned Ramanujan.
In theory, the solution would be simple: regulate migration. But politics doesn't work that way. Politicians don't want to regulate migration, not because they like to troll their people (we hope), but because it doesn't benefit them to do so.
Economically, stopping migration would be disastrous. Whether we like it or not, modern economies are tied to cheap labor. Many industries rely on migrants because locals don't want the jobs, and because paying migrants is cheaper. Stopping migration would mean labor shortages, price spikes, and economic stagnation. Politically, migration is a tool. Governments know that migrants don't vote, so they can push policies that favor business elites or more anti-migration people without worrying about backlash.
Human rights laws also prevent strict migration control. No matter what party you vote for, they cannot fully "shut the borders" because of international agreements like the Geneva Convention and UN treaties.
Let's use the European Union as an example. Countries like Hungary and Poland have been trying to block mass migration, but they're constantly pressured by EU policies and human rights courts to take in more people. Even if they democratically elect anti-immigration leaders, those leaders can only go so far before they violate international treaties and get sanctioned. In fact, they press their people, telling them how the EU forces them to take all the migrants, and that's partly true. Partly, because they know they benefit from them, and because they get money from the EU by taking them. But votes are votes. Besides, countries that refuse asylum seekers or deport too many people get accused of human rights violations, with the consequence of massive sanctions by their partners.
But if democracy is supposed to reflect the will of the people, then shouldn't a country be able to decide if it wants to stop migration?
But if human rights are "inviolable," then doesn't that mean the people's vote doesn't actually matter when it comes to things like migration?
We have two main ideas here:
If they'll believe in the absoluteness of Human Rights, then they'll have to accept that countries may be forced to take in migrants, even if their own citizens don't want it. Public opinion doesn't understand the first two words about "pragmatic policy", let alone they can understand what is good and what is bad for their country, no matter how they cry out. So the politicians appease them, or distract them, while they do their jobs uninterrupted.
In truth, we really don't have to worry about any of this, because we are played by the rules anyway.
Whether you support or oppose migration, the system will adapt based on necessity, not ideology.
If migration becomes too much of a burden, governments will tighten the borders, if migration proves economically beneficial, governments will increase the intake. Both can work in or against the public opinion, and just appear to be appeasing them. At the end of the day, political ideology always takes the backstage against the real world consequences. No country will willingly destroy itself for ideology (actually, some will.). If migration is hurting the economy, it will get reduced. If migration is benefiting the economy, it will increase.
Migration is not a moral or social question, it's a strategic one.
Whether you're pro-migration or anti-migration, whether you believe in nationalism orconservatorism or globalism or communism, the rules of the game are what actually determine migration policies. Those rules are beyond our commoner hands.
...But it seems that, recently, someone managed to just challenge these rules altogether. If it's for the better or the worse, we will see.
PART 4: Closure + TL
If you read all that shit: congratulations! I hope you found the lecture interesting, and hopefully you have acquired something more, not necessarily knowledge: even just thinking about a topic is enough, really. Sometimes it's better to read something that we don't really think much about, just to stimulate the mind.
Thank you!
TL;DR
Part 1: On Racism per se: What is "Racism" and Biological Racism
R at the end, in case you (understandably) don't give a fuck about this shit but you still want to know what it is about. And there's a POLL too!Hello everyone! Ever wondered if migrants are... a nuisance? If they are... bad? Of course you did, all of us think about migrants on daily basis: we love them, we hate them, they are the fellow humans escaping from war and famine, and they are the uncultured animals snatching our wallet in the metro and running over innocents during festivities. Especially in these strange years, we really find talking about them necessary, to say the least. Well, I feel like to discuss a point, a point that is extremely controversial: is being racist a fair point?
Let's be real for a second: if you've been on this site for more than just looksmaxing advice, you almost surely have witnessed some extremely retarded posts or comments against or in favor of racism. Like, not fair point pro/against it, but, snowflakes'/professional racists comments.
So, let's stop the whining and let's begin with the premises: this is an ethical-philosophical and political discussion, with occasional touches of history and social science solely to provide context. This discussion is not a definitive statement, it's not focused on empiricism (social science is used here as a lens for sociological history analysis, not statistical analysis barred some necessary proofs), and thus, the essence of this post is the presentation of a point of view, a perspective I hope will offer you new insights and thoughts (and maybe tell you some interesting anectodes ). Its purpose is to make a debate. Besides, I gotta be thin with the details, 'cause of attention spans, so don't expect very deep dives into the history of society.
PART 1: On Racism per se: What is "Racism" and Biological Racism
What is racism? Yes, this is a real question. In fact, the term "racism" has evolved so much that today it is often used to refer to any discrimination against those perceived as different or foreign. There is incredible polarization on racial issues, especially in the United States following the George Floyd case, and I find it important to explain racism thoroughly so we can all share a common ground of the term.Biological racism is, in fact, what is truly meant by the term racism. By definition, racism refers to a set of ideas asserting biological differences among humans, aka "races", thus enabling a distinction between them. If you look up the modern definition, you'll notice it also includes a "historical-cultural" component, but this was added post-WWII in response to Nazi atrocities. Originally, the definition was purely biological, as before the 16th century (or the 1900s, depending on your reference point), distinctions among peoples were solely historical or cultural.
If we consider the 16th century as a starting point, biological racism began to spread as a concept due to two key factors: the expansion of American colonies southward and westward the New World, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
1.1 - Colonization of America and Slave Trade
During the 16th century, the expansion of european colonies in the Americas completely shifted the global power dynamics and laid the foundations for biological racism. As European empires delved and colonized the Americas, they encountered indigenous populations with totally different cultures and appearances. At first, these differences were understood through religious and cultural methods: indigenous peoples were labeled "savages" because they didn't follow christianity and european customs, many were forced to embrace these cultures, the more the colonies started to take their lands and assimilate the natives. However, as colonization intensified, this cultural distinction shifted toward a biological justification. The conquest and colonization of the Americas required a narrative that could justify the subjugation of millions of people: native populations were stripped of their lands, subjected to forced labor, enslaved in general and eliminated at worst (indirectly as well, by the intensive hunt and deforestations). To justify these acts, colonizers began viewing the natives as inherently inferior: less civilized (culturally), less relevant (historically, and because of the "manifest destiny" effect), and ultimately less human (animals). Unlike earlier cultural or religious differences, this view started to take in consideration physical and biological traits, such as skin color or facial features, to argue that these groups were inferiors to Europeans as per natural reasons.
The development of plantation economies further emphasized this shift. As sugar, tobacco and other labor-intensive crops became central to colonial wealth, the need for a large (and possibly cheap) workforce grew. The natives were unable to meet this demand, leading to the importation of enslaved africans. To normalize both the destruction of native societies and the exploitation of enslaved africans, colonial powers increasingly turned to the idea that these groups were biologically predestined to occupy the lowest social and economic place of the hierarchy. In this way, the colonization of the Americas not only incentivized the rise of biological racism but also institutionalized it as a central point for the imperial systems of slavery. The iverse cultures of african people were dismissed and erased in favor of a biological factor. This narrative reinforced the idea that enslavement was a natural and inevitable condition for africans, rather than a result of economic and political reasons.
By the time the trade reached its peak, the association between race and slavery had become deeply intertwined, shaping not only the economic systems of the Americas but also broader global attitude about race, and many others would indulge into colonizing Africa itself: one such example is Congo under Leopold II of Belgium. These ideas laid the foundation for future racial ideologies that continued to influence social and political structures long after the abolition of slavery. In fact, the only reason i'm remembering this part of history at all is because of the effects it would have two centuries after:
1.2 - 1900 and Positivism
Well, let's jump from 1600 to 1900. You may wonder why there's such a temporal split: why does biological racism emerge either in the 16th century or around the 1900s? The answer is simple: earlier forms of racisms were born only to structure and form political and economic justifications, but only in the late 1700s racism became a formal object of study. Let's introduce Positivism! I could dedicate an entire post just to it, not because I agree with the ideas, but because I literally wrote a real thesis on Lombroso's Positivism for a professor who happens to be one of the leading scholars on Lombroso. I like to think of myself as a sort of Positivism coinneseur.Bullshit aside. Positivism, a philosophical-scientific movement founded by Auguste Comte, emphasized empirical observation and the application of the scientific method to understand and improve society. While this approach had transformative changes on many fields, it also provided a framework for the science to classify and rank human populations. Biological racism, as we understand it today, truly crystallized during this era, as scientific concepts were co-opted to support racial hierarchies and justify policies of discrimination.
1.2.1 - Racial Taxonomy
The development of racial taxonomy in the 18th and 19th centuries marked a turning point in how human diversity was categorized. Rooted in the Enlightenment's drive for classification and order of the knowledge, early thinkers like Carl Linnaeus and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (with his "De Genesis Humani", the foundation of scientific racism, dated 1770) attempted to systematize human differences based on physical traits. Linnaeus's "Systema Naturae" divided humanity into four groups, attributing both physical and moral qualities to each, while Blumenbach expanded this to five races, introducing the term "Caucasian."
In the early 1800s, physical anthropology solidified these ideas with the branch of study known as "craniometry", a practice that measured skulls to link physical traits to intellectual and moral capacities. Scientist Samuel Morton (with "Crania Americana") ranked populations by cranial capacity, placing Europeans at the top and Africans at the bottom. These "scientific" studies, later discredited for their biases, were widely accepted at the time and reinforced ideas of racial superiority: Racial taxonomy aligned with european colonialism, providing a paradigm to classify and even rank natives encountered during expansion (to see if they were smart, stupid, prone to be thieves or rebel and so on). These classifications justified colonial rule by portraying non-european groups as biologically inferior and suited for enslavement. Racial taxonomy had finally moved from being a theory moved my theological ideas (the manifested destiny said above) to become a real and approved science, conformed to the new ideas of Positivism.
1.2.2 - Lombroso's Legacy
Cesare Lombroso, a prominent 19th century criminologist and physician, played a key role in linking positivism with biological racism. Positivism, which emphasized empirical observation and scientific methods, shaped Lombroso's approach to study and classify human behavior. His most influential concept was that the atavistic criminal, a person biologically predisposed to criminality, could be identified through physical traits considered "primitive" or evolutionary "throwbacks" (example: primitives used to have the famous... idk how to translate that... "median occipital dimple" or something like that if we trust google translate. You know, the Django scene with Candy explaining the skull of a BIPOC? That). He believed that criminality was not solely a product of social or environmental factors (which was a theory of the Chicago School of sociology and criminology), but was largely hereditary and biologically determined. In his masterwork, "L'Uomo Delinquente" (The Criminal Man, 1876), Lombroso cataloged physical traits he claimed were indicative of criminal tendencies, like skull shape, facial asymmetry, jaw size, and specific eyes and nose features. Even more importantly, Lombroso linked these traits to racial and ethnic origins: He argued that certain populations were more prone to criminality due to their "primitive" evolutionary status, positioning these groups lower on a biological hierarchy. For example, he associated certain skull shapes and other physical markers like flat noses with criminal predisposition, since they differed from the average person and were more similar to those of monkeys and predecessors. Now you guys know where the "the africans are monkeys" and similar mottos came from.
Lombroso's reliance on empirical observation and measurement gave his theories an aura of scientific legitimacy, even though they were humorously flawed by modern standards, and I can assure you of that. He collected extensive data through methods by cataloging physical anomalies, and in particularly by observing inmates in prisons. While his approach was positivist in its core, his conclusions were influenced by pre-conceived biases, cultural stereotypes and the tentative to improve his fame and popularity, steering the results. In one instance, just to point how his findings purposefully aligned with society's prejudices against marginalized groups, he showed how such atavistic traits were frequent on southern Italians (Italy became a single state in 1861, but italians still hated eachothers, and he was from Turin). Just to prove further how idiotic he was in some of his studies, another example would be his take on "pellagra", a malnutrition deficiency of the time. He went his way to prove that it was, in fact, an atavistic and genetically acquired trait. In one of his books, the female equivalent of The Criminal Man ("The Criminal Woman, the prostitute and the normal woman"), he managed not only to compare old women to cats, but to show how cats became grumpier the more they age, getting beaten up in punishment, completely missing the fact that the more you beat up a cat, the more they'll get grumpier.
Still, the use of positivist methodologies gave Lombroso's ideas great credibility in both scientific and legal circles. His work was influential not only in Italy, but across Europe and the Americas, shaping policies that criminalized and marginalized racial and ethnic minorities all around the world. Lombroso's theories were used to justify harsher sentencing, racial profiling and eugenic policies (he himself was an eugenist), aimed at controlling the reproduction of undesirable groups. His works left an extremely palpable effects up to nowadays (given how we see physical differences as something ugly by default), in evidently bad ways but also in many good ways: thanks to him, the fight against criminality, which was at this point unpredictable since it was a biological trait and one coulnd't study all the people in a city, became a work of prevention, shaping the future role of the police (they had to stay around and everywhere ready to intervene), and Lombroso is also an important figure in the creation of the first asylums.
1.3 - A conclusion to the race theories.
Let's be real: races don't exist. Sadly, i can't argue this point in a neutral way, because they literally don't exist. Arguing the existence of biological races is like arguing about the shape of the earth, but unlike the races, our planet can be demonstrated round with few tricks, while with races you have to trust into scientists and biologists.But don't worry: even if biological races don't exist, racism still has very good points. Actually, the most important point is just a paragraph below: the cultural racism. But before diving into it, let's briefly point out why biological racism is false.
1.3.1 - The genes.
This is the most important confutation of the biological races, and the one that requires the people's trust on scientists. You know what i'm going to say already: all humans share the same genes for the 99%. BUT there's a but: scientists can identify genetic differences between human populations. This is partly true: people from the same zone tend to have similar DNA. This doesn't mean that races are biologically real though.You may have noticed how people tend to share some traits from the nearby zones, like the indo-pacific asians have both almond eyes and black skin (the black chineses). That's because you have to think of human genetics like a gradient of colors on a map, not separate blocks. If you travel from Europe to Africa to Middle-East, there isn't a clear line where one "race" ends and another begins, because people's genetics shift gradually and the changes would be gradual. In other words: if travel from Norway and go all southward, you'll notice how people starts to get blacker the more you travel, gradually.
That above is the "on eye" observation, but if we took DNA samples from people living in Africa, Europe and Middle-East, we wouldn't see three separate racial groups. Instead, we'd see gradual genetic shifts, with each population blending into the next. Ironically, genetic differences between two random europeans can be greater than between a european and an african, and that's because our genes blended in the thousands of years we lived on earth through migrations.
That's also why genetics can tell us where someone's ancestors likely lived by the way (the "i'm 1% german" meme).
1.3.2 - The IQ correlation.
You may or may not know, but there's an IQ difference between countries and populations. And no, when I say "there's a difference" i'm not using an euphemism.
The source is The International IQ Test, so it's a pretty affable name. Now, this is from January 1th 2025, but the results were constant through the years. To be intellectually honest, i have to let you notice how certain countries (expecially african ones) have really few partecipants, but on the flip side, can you really blame them if it's really hard to make these tests in Angola?
The main claim out of this is that different populations have different IQ, and as you can see it's true. However, the meaning can be misleading.
First, to point the IQ as the only scale of intelligence is wrong. We don't know, for sure, how things work in our brains, and intelligence is one of those things we still don't know. We have several theories about it. For the sake of synthesis, I'll quote the most used model: the "factor g". This model accepts the existence of a general factor for intelligence (g) that determinates the full spectrum of cognitive capacities. Maybe you've heard about "other kinds" of intelligence, like "emotional intelligence" and such. I won't use that theory because it has no empirical proof, even if it's used a lot for pedagogy (Gardner Multiple Intelligences theory).
To explain the "g theory" really fast: the g is an imaginary factor that resembles the total variation of intelligence of an individual, while the IQ is a part of "g" that tries to give the "g" a numerical value in some subcategories based on the tests, like memory, social intelligence, linguistics and so on. The WAIS, the International IQ organization and others usually focus more about the "logical-mathematical" part, because it has a stronger correlation with the "g". In other words: you may as well score a 90 in the IQ test, but still have a high "g" when you do another kind of IQ test, like the emotional intelligence, or vice-versa. Unrelated, but to make an example other than the classic Asperger-guy: think about someone with mental retardation. They score low on IQ test, showing in fact a low capacity in logic, mathematics, cognitive-linguistics. They however have their "emotional intelligence" intact, and since they lack the more analytical side of their intelligence, they rely more on the emotional part, improving it and scoring higher than the average population in the other tests.
Now, why does it matter for the races part?
We talked about how almost all IQ tests measure problem-solving skills, logic, and memory, but they don't directly measure intelligence. Now, More importantly: IQ is heavily influenced by environment. If a child grows up with poor nutrition, shitty education, stress and/or lack of mental stimulation, their IQ score will likely be lower. Studies have shown that when people are given better education, healthcare and economic stability, their IQ scores rise over time. This is called the "Flynn effect," and it proves that intelligence is not fixed by race but shaped by external conditions.
Mind you: intelligence has a genetic component, far from me to say that intelligence is purely an acquired thing, otherwise people like Ramanujan wouldn't even exist. That doesn't mean, however, that racial differences in IQ are biological. Genetics influence individual traits within a population, not differences between populations. For example, height is influenced by genetics, but the reason dutch people are taller on average than south koreans is mostly because of better nutrition, not because of genetic differences between the two groups. Today, the average QI of south koreans is 108-110, but in the 1950 it was 90. The same with Italy. In less than a century, the IQ improved vastly not because of plain-up mutations, but because of environmental factors.
This does make "races" even more unlikely, given how even in "intelligence genes" it's debunked and everything changes within a century. It is, however, a very good argumentation in the soon-to-come "Cultural Racism" section.
Bonus: The "spread all around the world" evolutionary argument.
Given the points above, the races theory should already be discredited, but for the sake of completeness, i'll report the last most used argumentation: humanity evolved spread enough and long enough to become different sub-species altogether.Let's assume that we don't believe the scientists and the genes studies, and let's use history alone. A quite a lot of time ago (i've looked up, wiki says 60.000 years ago), humans spread all around the world with the biggest mass migration of our history, moving from africa to Europe and Asia. Now, assuming that 60.000 was a lot of time ago and things surely changed by now is incredibly stupid, because evolution works in hundreds of thousands of years to make significant changes, and that doesn't include things like the massive trade roads between continents, like the Roman Empire, the Silk Road and the many invasions and mixing. The few things that changed were the most immediate necessities, like the skin color to adapt at the sun.
PART 2 - Cultural Racism
Oh boy.Now, you can believe in races, i won't argue if you still believe in them. But, most probably, even those who believe in "races" actually believe in something on the line of "selected populations of certain zones of the worlds are plainly and simply animals", not in the races themselves. Maybe they hate haitians because they kill themselves if they don't have the whites stopping them, and literally cook and eat each others (and our dogs and cats if they don't have human flesh around), or maybe they hate the indians because they reek of spices and shit and do dumb things, and insert your least favourite country here because of reason. Some other times, one can't but notice how, wherever the migrants come, the more they are further from the "western standards", the more they are criminals in the country where they are guested.
What is Cultural Racism?
Well, what i've just wrote above is "cultural racism": the belief that certain cultures are inherently better than others, and that some cultures are inherently shit, and those into shit cultures will be shit themselves most of the time. Unlike biological racism, where races are debunked, cultural racism is impossible to debunk, if not by counter-argumentate a point. But even then, cultural racism is a set of thoughts: if you can't show that they are wrong with science or rhetotic, then they are personal opinions.Instead of saying that people are naturally inferior because of their physical features, now the argument is that their culture is shit. No one that is not a real professional will talk about skull size and atavistic features. Now, it's all about values, social norms and mentalities. The timing wasn't random: after World War II, being openly racist started to be seen as something bad. Now, surely there still were Jim Crow's laws, apartheid, the colonies and all that, no? Yes, but from 1950 onward, the UN started to take distace from these ideas. The reason why segregations and the rest were still accepted and admitted was because of a slow shift of mentality: the colonies were conviced (or because of political reasons) that the locals simply weren't ready for auto-govern themselves; the Jim Crow's laws persisted both because of the same reason prior, and because the people simply didn't like to have the BIPOCs around them sharing the same bus seat, and going against public opinion was a very good way to lose your presidential seat. It didn't help that the blacks were usually in delicate positions (poverty and stuff), and seen as petty criminals. The shift was that cultures are changable: yeah, maybe races aren't a thing, but if so, then that's even worse, because since all the BIPOCs of the getto are criminals, then they purposefully choose to be criminals, they associate with other BIPOCs and commit crimes by choice, those cheeky monkeys.
That above is Cultural Racism at it's peak, and it's the usual forma mentis. And this is where things get complicated.
The Right
Let's get straight to the point: not all cultural criticisms is bigotry. Some aspects of cultural racism have real, observable foundations. The idea that cultures shape behavior, values, and social outcomes isn't controversial: it's basic sociology. What is controversial is whether those cultural differences justify exclusion, discrimination or political action.
One of the biggest arguments used by cultural racists is the crime rates among different ethnic or national groups. And here's the inconvenient truth: crime rates do vary between different communities, and not all of it is due to poverty or discrimination.
- Black Americans commit violent crimes at disproportionately high rates compared to other ethnic groups in the States. No, it's not a right-wing media, it's in official FBI crime statistics.
- India has some of the highest rates of sexual violence against women in the world. This isn't just a problem of economic disparity, as the research concludes: cultural attitudes towards women and caste dynamics play a HUGE role, even if the caste system as been formely abolished and banned.
- The total number of reported sexual offenses in Sweden increased from over 16,000 in 2013 to nearly 24,000 by 2023, remembering that this rise is just after the 2015 migration crisis.
What's the cause? Left-wing explanations focus on poverty, lack of education, systemic racism and historical oppression, focussing about the social-ambiental reasons. Right-wing explanations put emphasis on cultural factors, like the normalization of violence, weak family structures (on homosexuality and abort as well), and glorification of criminal behavior (through subcultures, like minor gangs and such). If we try to be neutral, the truth is somewhere in between. Take Black American crime rates: It's absolutely undeniable that centuries of racial discrimination and the now relevant economic disparity can lead to criminality, but gang culture, the glorification of crime in the underworld mentality and the lack of police intervention (remember that more police = more money to pay, so spending money for the police to crack down gangs and stuff is expensive too) reinforce the cycle.
Denying the influence of culture is just as wrong as denying the effects of systemic inequality. Cultural values matter a lot. If you grow up in an environment where crime is normalized, where breaking the law is seen as survival or where authorities are viewed as enemies, you're more likely to engage in crime. The answer can't simply be "then just integrate them", because even if true, pushing for integration is, first of all, expensive (police, social programs, schools, finding employment for them, and all that remembering that they don't speak your country's language), and sometimes the forced integration can have the opposite effect, expecially in coutries that already forbid some cultural practices, like the Hijab or the genital mutilation. Some cultures (and subcultures) do a better job than others at discouraging crime and promoting law-abiding behavior, and they simply integrate better and faster the more they embrace your same values or have already good access to a good education and healtcare (eg United Arab Emirates).
The Wrong
The "Is it worth it?" part. Above, we talked about the negative sides of migrations and different cultures, so it's right to talk about the pros now.One of the strongest arguments in favor of migration is its economic benefits. Migrants contribute to the workforce, fill labor shortages and create businesses that stimulate local economies.
Imagine walking into a grocery store and seeing empty shelves because there aren't enough workers to harvest crops (sounds like slavery ik but it's the plain fact). Imagine trying to book a hospital appointment, only to find that wait times have doubled because there aren't enough nurses (I'm italian and i know this very well). Last but not least: imagine a city where construction projects are left unfinished, forever (still italy, but southern). here simply aren't enough workers willing to take on physically demanding and low-paying jobs. This is a real issue faced by many developed nations today due to declining birth rates, aging population and the de-valuation of study degrees due to growing competition.
Western countries are experiencing a demographic shift that is leaving critical gaps in the labor market. As birth rates decline, fewer young people are entering the workforce, while the older generations retire in increasing numbers. In italy, an ever increasing number of businesses look for migrants, given the low cost and the willingness to work to earn and live there. Contrary to the stereotype that they steal jobs, migrants often take on work that native populations increasingly avoid because of the increase in instruction and increasing degrees numbers. Agriculture and industries are a prime example: fruit picking, vegetable farming and meat processing are labor-intensive, low wage jobs that many of the native people try to dodge at all costs. Without migrant labor, farmers in countries like Italy and Germany have warned of food shortages and skyrocketing prices.
Put aside the economy, migrants also enrich the cultures that receive them (i know, talking about "cultural enrichment" sounds like sarcasm, but bare with me). cultural mixing pushes innovation and create social progress: some of the most celebrated cultural movements, like the Renaissance and the Moorish, were the direct result of multicultural societies where ideas from different backgrounds merged to create advancements in science, art and philosophy. If we have to mention modern examples, we could talk about the italians moving in the States, hated by the time they migrated there, but loved now by the italian cuisine, much like we can now appreciate the Doner Kebab and all that. I don't even need to talk about the great minds that migrated from their countries and bringing with them their minds, like the aforementioned Ramanujan.
PART 3 - We win by the rules, we lose by the rules.
The part 2 about cultural racism is shorter because part 3 here is an extension, a more philosophical approach of it.3.1 - Politics sucks
So, we've gone through biological racism and cultural racism. Now, let's move on to the actual question: Is it worth it? Even more: who has more rights: the public opinion/politics, or the inviolable Human Rights? And then: Should we embrace multiculturalism? Should we reject migrants from incompatible cultures? I think that many don't even hate migrants, they just hate how their politicians "flood" their countries with them. They just hate how their governments are handling the process. When people talk about being "anti-immigration," most of them aren't saying "never let a single migrant in." They're saying "Our governments are importing people without any real integration plan", "Why are we taking in thousands of migrants when we can't even take care of our own homeless and unemployed?", "Why are people who clearly refuse to adapt to our laws and values still being allowed to stay?".In theory, the solution would be simple: regulate migration. But politics doesn't work that way. Politicians don't want to regulate migration, not because they like to troll their people (we hope), but because it doesn't benefit them to do so.
Economically, stopping migration would be disastrous. Whether we like it or not, modern economies are tied to cheap labor. Many industries rely on migrants because locals don't want the jobs, and because paying migrants is cheaper. Stopping migration would mean labor shortages, price spikes, and economic stagnation. Politically, migration is a tool. Governments know that migrants don't vote, so they can push policies that favor business elites or more anti-migration people without worrying about backlash.
Human rights laws also prevent strict migration control. No matter what party you vote for, they cannot fully "shut the borders" because of international agreements like the Geneva Convention and UN treaties.
And this is where we reach the ultimate contradiction of today's democracy:
3.2 - Democracy vs. Human Rights
In theory, democracy is supposed to be the will of the people: You vote, you decide. But in reality, even if 90% of a country voted for zero immigration policy, they still couldn't actually enforce it... Because international Human Rights laws override national policies.Let's use the European Union as an example. Countries like Hungary and Poland have been trying to block mass migration, but they're constantly pressured by EU policies and human rights courts to take in more people. Even if they democratically elect anti-immigration leaders, those leaders can only go so far before they violate international treaties and get sanctioned. In fact, they press their people, telling them how the EU forces them to take all the migrants, and that's partly true. Partly, because they know they benefit from them, and because they get money from the EU by taking them. But votes are votes. Besides, countries that refuse asylum seekers or deport too many people get accused of human rights violations, with the consequence of massive sanctions by their partners.
But if democracy is supposed to reflect the will of the people, then shouldn't a country be able to decide if it wants to stop migration?
But if human rights are "inviolable," then doesn't that mean the people's vote doesn't actually matter when it comes to things like migration?
We have two main ideas here:
- Democratic Nationalism: The idea that a country's people should have full control over their borders and laws, always. The fair point is: what's the point of voting, if what i vote for is lmao'ed by the higher powers?
- Universal Humanism (not a real name but you get the drift): The belief that human rights should override national interests, and that countries have a moral obligation to work under the Human Rights laws, regardless of public opinion. The fair point is: God forbids that we walk back into middle-ages with the hunt of gays and such, because we had a government that, under our nose, did the fuck they wanted to via media control and other subdle ways.
If they'll believe in the absoluteness of Human Rights, then they'll have to accept that countries may be forced to take in migrants, even if their own citizens don't want it. Public opinion doesn't understand the first two words about "pragmatic policy", let alone they can understand what is good and what is bad for their country, no matter how they cry out. So the politicians appease them, or distract them, while they do their jobs uninterrupted.
In truth, we really don't have to worry about any of this, because we are played by the rules anyway.
3.3 - Rules of the game
We spoke about how being pro-migration or anti-migration causes good and bad things to happen in both of them. We talked about the incredibly simplified truth of politics, and how ultimately it all works like a clockwork. Then, we just have to confirm a last point:Whether you support or oppose migration, the system will adapt based on necessity, not ideology.
If migration becomes too much of a burden, governments will tighten the borders, if migration proves economically beneficial, governments will increase the intake. Both can work in or against the public opinion, and just appear to be appeasing them. At the end of the day, political ideology always takes the backstage against the real world consequences. No country will willingly destroy itself for ideology (actually, some will.). If migration is hurting the economy, it will get reduced. If migration is benefiting the economy, it will increase.
Migration is not a moral or social question, it's a strategic one.
Whether you're pro-migration or anti-migration, whether you believe in nationalism orconservatorism or globalism or communism, the rules of the game are what actually determine migration policies. Those rules are beyond our commoner hands.
...But it seems that, recently, someone managed to just challenge these rules altogether. If it's for the better or the worse, we will see.
PART 4: Closure + TLR
If you read all that shit: congratulations! I hope you found the lecture interesting, and hopefully you have acquired something more, not necessarily knowledge: even just thinking about a topic is enough, really. Sometimes it's better to read something that we don't really think much about, just to stimulate the mind.Thank you!
TL;DR
Part 1: On Racism per se: What is "Racism" and Biological Racism
- Racism originally meant biological racism, the idea that some races are inherently superior.
- This concept exploded during colonization and the slave trade to justify European imperialism.
- In the 19th century, positivism tried to prove racial hierarchy with pseudoscience (skull measurements, Lombroso's theories).
- Science today shows that races don't exist biologically, human genetic differences are gradual and don't form clear racial groups.
- IQ differences between populations are mostly caused by environment, not genes (Flynn effect, education, economy).
- Evolution doesn't work fast enough for create "human sub-species", especially with constant migration and genetic mixing.
- Biological Racism is debunked. You can believe in races, but there are a lot of proofs against it.
- After WWII, outright biological racism became unpopular, but cultural racism took its place.
- Instead of saying "X race is inferior," people started saying "X culture is bad."
- Some cultural criticisms have legitimate points: crime rates and social behaviors vary between groups, sometimes due to cultural norms.
- However, culture is not fixed: it evolves, and individuals from "bad" cultures can integrate successfully with the right conditions.
- Immigration isn't about ideology, it's about economics and strategy.
- Governments don't "flood" their countries with migrants for the lols: it's about cheap labor and economic necessity.
- Even if the majority of a population votes for zero immigration, international and human rights laws prevent complete shutdowns.
- Democracy vs. Human Rights: Public opinion often conflicts with international agreements that protect migrants.
- Countries can't just "stop migration" without massive economic and political consequences (labor shortages, diplomatic isolation).
- In the end, policies change based on necessity, not ideology. If migration benefits a country, it will continue. If it becomes a burden, it will be reduced.
- We'll, as always, be polarized and deceived.
degrees
Not hate
