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Over at StatNews is a story on a recent trend where low cost commercial DNA testing is resulting in a number of White Nationalists taking genetic tests, and sometimes they don't like the results that come back.
The article looks at research on how they respond to the sometimes unexpected results:
[...] In a new study, sociologists Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan examined years' worth of posts on Stormfront to see how members dealt with the news.
[...] About a third of the people posting their results were pleased with what they found. "Pretty damn pure blood," said a user with the username Sloth. But the majority didn't find themselves in that situation. Instead, the community often helped them reject the test, or argue with its results.
Some rejected the tests entirely, saying that an individual's knowledge about his or her own genealogy is better than whatever a genetic test can reveal. [...] Others, he said, responded to unwanted genetic results by saying that those kinds of tests don't matter if you are truly committed to being a white nationalist. Yet others tried to discredit the genetic tests as a Jewish conspiracy "that is trying to confuse true white Americans about their ancestry," Panofsky said.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @02:22PM (16 children)
I LOVE being whipped into a constant frenzy over people I am allowed to hate or feel superior to!
There are almost no groups left for this except white people like these!
I NEED this outlet!
(Score: 2) by lx on Friday August 18 2017, @02:41PM
Don't worry Anon. Scarfolk council has your back! [blogspot.nl]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @02:42PM (1 child)
Is that irony?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday August 18 2017, @02:55PM
Poe strikes again.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @02:47PM (1 child)
Of course, if you are one, you hate or feel superior to everyone else.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday August 18 2017, @03:13PM
s/or/and/
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @06:15PM
And the news cycle has just fulfilled your dreams --
NY Times reports that Steve Bannon is out,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/us/politics/steve-bannon-trump-white-house.html?mcubz=0 [nytimes.com]
Might be worth a whole story of it's own, but that would take a couple of days to get through the queue...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 18 2017, @07:20PM (8 children)
You don't think it's appropriate to hate and feel superior to NAZIS?
There are almost no groups left for this except white people like these!
You're right. Everyone else learned from history.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @07:42PM (7 children)
I know, right? Let's go beat and maim some! It's fun, and nobody will ever call us on it. Let's help start a riot somewhere; I've got a rental car gassed up. You bring the communist flags; I'll bring the bats and chemical spray.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @08:03PM (6 children)
Look at the apologist trying to project nazi methodology on to his "enemies". Lol, try harder brah.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @09:27PM (5 children)
You're too dense to get it, so I'll spell it out in terms even you might understand...
Nazis: I don't support them.
Intifa thugs: I don't support them.
Riots: I definitely don't support that. Violence crosses the line.
Just because one side is Nazis does not excuse fomenting or participating in a riot.
You can engage in a counterprotest without violence. Otherwise, you're just a thug too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:18PM (4 children)
I went back through the thread and nope, no mentions or calls for violence. Oh, except for you but it is pretty clear you are being sarcastic. I am absolutely 100% superior to any nazi, by the simple virtue of not sharing their ideology or having one that is worse. Personally I try not to hold hatred in my heart as it does more damage to myself than anyone else.
When you react so strongly to condemnations of nazis it really comes off as apologetic garbage, perhaps you should save your outrage for when someone actually advocates violence and rioting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:35PM (3 children)
Missed my point.
There is more than one way to take on Nazi groups.
Picking physical fights with them and rioting is not the way--unless you enjoy killing or maiming. The ones killed or maimed might be your own. Don't be a nihilistic dumbass is all I am saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @04:55AM
That may have been your point but you tried to get it across with unsubstantiated accusations, bad plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @04:59AM
Indeed, as I rarely take anything I see at face value, especially when It's being filtered through 'media' applying all sorts of 'spin', I've found myself thinking over the past couple of days, 'This is idiotic, dragging yourself down to (or below) the level of your 'enemy' isn't the way to go, what exactly is the agenda of the people behind these 'anti-nazi' protests?' which then lead me to the following question in an attempt to identify the 'people behind', 'Who benefits the most from all this?'
So far, I'm at a bit of a loss, probably because not being USian I'm not really 100% up to speed with whatever current political machinations are going on over there, and as it seems to be in a somewhat chaotic state of daily/hourly flux thanks to the current CINC, I don't think I'll bother too much trying to keep up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:38AM
Agreed. This is why I prefer snippers. People who with a pair of shears can take out a Nazi at near to a thousand yards. They never see it coming. Or the more mundane approach of outing them on social media, telling their mommas, and waiting for the ensuing wailing. Also, once you know who they are and where they live, you can direct rouge micro black holes that pass through our solar system largely unnoticed, but that will suck in something as small as a human body with no problem, and with no evidence. So you are right, just beating Nazis with sticks and bats, and cudgels, and large root-ends of trees, lambasting them with wet noodles, rawhide thongs, cat-o-nine tails, spraying them with holy water, bucolic acid, bleach (extra-whitening power!), or the old standby, lion urine, or threatening them with physical pain in such a way as to make them loose their bowels, all these methods are below the champions of social justice, democracy, and the American way of life. . . . . Bring out the Bear Jew! Inglorious Bastards, the Antifa are! Oh, shit, Mr. Nazi, you did not think it would come to this? You were sooo wrong.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday August 18 2017, @10:26PM
#Whatabout RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM? Look what happened in Spain yesterday! Many dead and many, many injured in vicious terror attacks! ISIS taking credit! I love what our great General Pershing did in the Philippines when he had a big Muslim problem. Early in the century, last century. He rounded up 10,000 Muslims. And he lined them up. And he took his men and gave them buckets of pig's blood. You heard about that? And he has his men pour out the pig's blood all over those people. And they cut the throats of 9,999 of those people. And the 10,000th person, he said, you go back to your people and you tell them what happened. Pig's blood, for Muslims, is like being poor is for us. It's the worst thing there is. There's a whole thing with swine and animals and pigs. You know the story. They don't like that. And for 25 years, there wasn't a problem. We better start getting tough and we better start getting vigilant. We better start using our heads or we're not gonna have a country. 🇺🇸
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Friday August 18 2017, @02:53PM (35 children)
I seem to remember a season 1 episode [wikia.com] where Dr. Franklin gets a visit from an old friend. The friend involved in an archaeological dig on a long dead world. The ancient Ikarran [wikia.com] race had died off a thousand years ago. They had created advanced biotech robot weapons to destroy the invading enemy. The bots would destroy anyone who wasn't pure Ikarran.
So of course, it killed them all. The entire race. Because none of them were pure enough. Turns out the bot's rules for "pure" were written by zealots rather than practical people.
I wonder if anybody is white enough for white nationalists. Probably not. So why not just kill all humans on earth? It would make the bot programming a lot simpler.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday August 18 2017, @03:13PM (29 children)
If you go back far enough, you find that every single human is a descendant of Africans.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 18 2017, @04:20PM (1 child)
Wasn't the Garden of Eden in the Middle East?
(ducks, hides under desk)
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Friday August 18 2017, @07:28PM
Princeton: Oh, Christ do I feel good.
Gary Coleman: Now there was a fine upstanding black man!
Princeton: Who?
Gary Coleman: Jesus Christ.
Kate Monster: But, Gary, Jesus was white.
Gary Coleman: No, Jesus was black.
Kate Monster: No, Jesus was white.
Gary Coleman: No, I'm pretty sure that Jesus was black-
Princeton: Guys, guys...Jesus was Jewish!
Brian: Hey guys, what are you laughing about?
Gary Coleman: Racism!
Brian: Cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jXz_xkrhXI [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday August 18 2017, @04:25PM (26 children)
If you go back far enough, we are all descendents of that terraforming algae.
On a more serious note, there are two groups out there:
- True white supremacists, who say the rest of the human race is basically dog turds
- People who say: be proud of you culture, whatever it is. I'm white, so I'm proud of white culture.
There aren't very many of the former, there are quite a lot of the latter. The MSM is deliberately trying to blur this distinction and call them all Nazis, probably because the second group isn't interested in bowing to progressive shibboleths.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @04:34PM (8 children)
Define "white culture." You can't, because there's about a zillion different kinds of "white people" out there. My own ancestry just in the last 200 years is Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Ukranian, Polish, Austrian, German, French, and Russian, and somehow I ended up with "van Eck" as a surname.
WHICH culture should I be proud of specifically? Culture is ethnic, not defined by the color of your skin. And before you make the obvious "then what about "black pride?" rebuttal, has it occurred to you that there hadn't been *time* for, say, Senegal or Nigeria or Benin to *develop* that kind of culture before the Arab-American slave trade essentially shipped the lot of them off to the other side of the planet as slave labor?
You are displaying a serious lack of knowledge about historical reality and a confusion of terms which is causing you to embrace destructive ideologies. Please learn a few things before you spout off like this.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday August 18 2017, @05:37PM (7 children)
"Define "white culture." You can't"
Sure I can. In the US (and we are specifically discussing US events here), you have a mix of all sorts of different groups. The ones who have been there a while have largely lost touch with wherever they came from. You just listed 9 nationalities in your background - that's great, you're a typical white American, the result of a successful melting pot. Your culture begins with the ancient Greeks and the Romans, carries through the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, includes the migration the the New World, and what has happened in the US since. That is your culture. You are not Norwegian or Ukrainian, you are an average white American of European ancestry. That is your culture. That is "white culture" in the US.
Other groups in the US have different cultures, (or if you prefer, subcultures). Take Hispanics as an example: Even though they also ultimately have European roots, they have more recent ties to their origins in Central and South America. In many (most?) cases, they still speak Spanish, and have contact with family in their countries of origin. That is a different experience, leading to a different culture. American blacks, African blacks, Chinese, Japanese: other groups have their history, their own collective experiences, and hence own unique subcultures.
Most groups are told: be proud of your culture! Be proud to be XYZ. The notable exception are the people in the ex-European group. If they display pride in their culture, they are called racist, and told that they need to atone for their privilege. People are getting tired of being told to atone for sins they never committed; they're just average folk, getting through life a day at a time, justlike anyone else.
Call them racist for taking pride in their history, just one more time. Come on, do it. Bubba is gonna tell you where to stuff it. Which is basically how Trump got elected.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @06:25PM (2 children)
Ah, I see where you're going with this.
Unfortunately, this "melting pot" means the bad as well as the good. This also means that my "culture" would include massive amounts of genocide and slavery, some of it within living memory, of the people who were here before us or who were forced to come here against their will by us. No thank you; none of my ancestors were involved in either the slave trade or the genocide of the American First Nations as far back as I can trace them, and i would rather *not* lay claim to that as part of "white culture" if it's all the same to you.
Furthermore, consider that I grew up in southern Queens and the Bronx, by turns, in New York City. Flushing looks like Hong Kong, and most people in the Bronx where I was were Latinx or black. Whites were very much a minority in both cases. I still prefer Sichuan, Hunan, and Cantonese food over Midwest and especially Southern US cuisine, and make it a point to brew about half a dozen pan-Chinese herbal medicines for common ailments. Yet my skin is white (though I get mistaken for Hispanic or even Egyptian in low light...must be the hair).
So...what culture am I, really? Am I a "reverse banana?"
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @11:10PM (1 child)
No fried chicken, chicken-fried pork, batter-fried okra, hush puppies, collard greens??
Gal, you were eating at all the wrong "Southern" joints. 8-)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:51AM
I kind of like the whole not-having-diabetes thing. There is a reason the fattest people in the country live in the Southeastern states =P
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @06:32PM
"Sure I can. In the US (and we are specifically discussing US events here),"
By all means, double-down on xenophobia.
Joking aside, your description of white culture (even limited to the US alone) is way off. There are lots of distinctly different cultures of "white people" based on their ancestral cultures. Sure, the whole thing's fuzzy, but if you want to go down that road "white culture" becomes even less distinct from any other culture.
A note on Europeans: they were supremely shitty in days gone by. There are a few people who will try to make you feel bad for that. Everyone else just wants you to know it. If you want to react to the latter group as though they were the former you will be seen as a racist for trying to deny history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @07:37PM
No Trump got elected on a platform of lies and hatred of liberals. You can keep trying to convert the latent and overt racism into ancestral pride, but no one else is buying that shtick. Only the extremist liberals say all conservatives are racist, just like only the most extreme conservatives spout conspiracy nonsense and believe liberals are coming to kill them / take their guns / turn them gay.
You are falling for a polarizing LIE. Take pride in your culture, but as soon as you cross into white supremacy then fuck yeah you'll get called out for that shit. If you don't have the good sense to condemn the nasty parts of your ancestry then you're going to be lumped in with them. Doing / saying nothing and pretending like bigotry is not a massive problem in the US will only get your negative responses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:33PM
Bullshit! There are nearly endless examples of white "ex-Europeans" celebrating their culture here in America! In Michigan, for example, you can actually find entire towns that are a near endless parade of European heritage. Maybe you need to get out more?
Set aside your persecution complex, put down the tiki torch, and the assault rifle with the extended ammo clip. No one is telling you that you can't celebrate your heritage. Just don't beat up others while you do it. Mmmmmkay?
No, Trump was elected because he sold us a bill of goods and told us that America was in a very, very dark place and he alone could fix it. BTW, how is MAGA working out for you? Just asking.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @09:50AM
Sure, no problem! "Fucking racists!" Seriously, when the only thing you have to point to in your "cultural history" is the weiner, something both Anthony and TMB agree on, you are a fucking racist. And you all want to vote for Trump, to do what? Repeal Obamacare, 'cause Obama was black? Didn't see that coming! Or you want to give tax breaks to the 1% to help out all the poor white trash you imagine I just insulted? They are not that stupid. Or do you want to roll back environmental protections, and worker safety regulations, and labor rights regulations, and pull out of the Paris accords just to grab some Petrochemical Pu . . . .
Yeah. Call us the "alt-left" one more time, you coward. If you cannot even live in your country, and you think you have a right to judge? And, OMG, did you vote? There is no alt-left, there is just the regular old left, no need for alternatives, because Leftist Values are American values! Equal rights, freedom, and a basic distrust of real estate developers and used car salesmen.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Friday August 18 2017, @04:51PM (4 children)
Found the racist! There is no such thing as "white", and no such thing as "white culture"! You would think some living in Switzerland would know this! Do you speak Italian? Or Allemange? Or Francias?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @08:49PM
I suppose you could turn around the "media invented the African American!!ermagerd!1!" thing and say that 90s media (1890s) invented the "white American," because everybody knows there's only English, French, Germans, Poles, and Irish. Personally I think we should build a wall and deport all the Germans, Poles, and Irish!
In fact, I'm part German! Deport me! For the love of god deport me please!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:45AM (1 child)
There is no such thing as Black or Black Culture either.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:28AM
Strangely enough, there is! Take your "average" American that is "white". They are not white, they are not even "white European", they are going to be Polish, Italian, German, English, Scot, Irish, Russian, Lithuanian, Spanish, or whatever and many combinations of these and mixtures of Arabic, Egyptian, Lebanese, Jewish, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Indian, Australian, as well all Narragansett, Potawamie, Iroquis, Creek, Seminole, Mohawk, Chocktaw, Pawnee, Mandan, Hopi, Absarokee, Nez Perce, Gro Ventre, Shoshone, Modoc, Spokane, Tualip, Kwaquital, Tillamook, and a bunch more. But they are never just "white", and it is redundant or superflous to add it to the European heritage.
Now with African-Americans, due to the inhuman institution of chattel slavery, they are just Black, because they usually have no heritage from Africa, they usually do not know what tribe there family may have originally descended from, and in fact they have had to resort to DNA testing to even have some idea of where they came from. And their whole genealogy may be hidden due to the fact that they were bred like animals, or raped by their "white" owners, not allowed to have family and lineage. So there is such a thing as "Black", it was created by "white" racism and the destruction of people and their families. You I guess you could argue that there is a "white" identity back-formed by the violent oppression that made "Black" necessary. But that is all that this "white" is, violent inhuman racism.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @05:11AM
Bradley13 speaks American, you insensitive clod!
(Score: 1) by ben_white on Friday August 18 2017, @05:04PM (3 children)
I've got a sure fire test to tell the difference. If you show up with Nazi flags and torches you are the former.
--
cheers, ben
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 18 2017, @07:31PM (1 child)
What about Tiki torches?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @11:54PM
Are they using those, as a group, to beat a black dude? [google.com]
Did one of them pull a pistol during the process?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 18 2017, @07:34PM
You've described half a test. Let's say someone doesn't, in fact, show up with a Nazi flag or torches (tiki or otherwise). What then?
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @05:32PM (3 children)
despite the nerds below nitpicking about "white culture" as a pissy nerd way of trying to change the subject to make you look like a nazi. your point is true. the media scum is purposely picking the most radical site they can find and saying here (an obvious neo nazi/fbi website) is what a "white nationalist" is. even though "white nationalist" just means someone who wants to have his nation(whatever form that might take) be made up of people that are like him/her/pronoun. whether that is achievable or even advisable/desirable is another matter. many white nationalists don't focus on hate of other races, but of dealing with the problems of the "white race". they are demonized as nazis. some white nationalists probably are, but some aren't. trying to help your own people (however you determine that for yourself) doesn't necessarily have to be an offensive strategy against others and doesn't automatically make you a national socialist or a fascist but they want the tv watchers to believe it does.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @06:22PM
Yes, it is true, he is a Nazi. Repeat: there is no "white".
"Whiteness of the Whale", Moby Dick, Herman Melville. [americanliterature.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:25PM (1 child)
Can't believe you posted that nonsense with a straight face.
You aren't just a nazi, you're a fucking PUSSY nazi! At least you've been figured out that murder and genocide are a bad thing, but I bet that little inhibition will disappear as soon as you are surrounded by other nazi wannabes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 19 2017, @10:00AM
Just can't stop quoting from Moby Dick! Cant' help but think that Queeqeg would approve.
It is the whiteness of the alt-right that above all things appalled me. Just, evil, and not an unblameable evil, like an albino, but the evil of a speaker of the house, or a President, that persists in artificial colouration of the skin. They are "white", but at the same time go to great lengths to not be. Therein lies the secret, the abomination that is the whiteness of the alt-right. And it would continue to be so, even if no Ahab sought vengeance, or no Anti-fascists sought to harpoon the alt-right's members of unusual size. (Why are most American Nazi's so fat? Is this Melville's fault?)
(Score: 5, Informative) by meustrus on Friday August 18 2017, @06:27PM
The latter group are ripe to be picked up by the former group. As others have pointed out, "white" is not an ethnicity and there is no such thing as "white culture". Except to one group of people: white nationalists.
Ultimately, the "be proud of my whiteness" people are just a little bit ignorant about themselves. They're not the only group that has this problem. The other one? Young immigrant Arabs.
They also are broadly proud of their heritage, but haven't been to a mosque in years and don't really understand Islam. So when this guy shows up on Facebook telling them to take pride and filling in the blanks, it fills a need. One can get really easily sucked into an "in-group" that shares your "heritage" when one doesn't properly understand oneself.
It's the same thing, see? White supremacy bears a striking resemblance to Islamic terrorism. And you fight it the same way: by reaching the ignorant young people with positive messages before the terrorists can reach them with negative ones. Help them to discover the rich cultural heritage of their English, German, Italian, Irish, etc. ancestry. Connect them with community groups like churches, fraternal orders, outreach groups, kid-mentorship groups like the Scouts. Replace their ignorance with a sense of belonging before the terrorists can use it to instill a sense of entitlement and hatred.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 18 2017, @07:22PM
The MSM is deliberately trying to blur this distinction and call them all Nazis
That tends to happen when you're carrying a swastika flag.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 18 2017, @08:34PM
This means something profoundly important about aliens.
I have more in common with the tree outside, than I do with, say, a Narn or Klingon.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @09:46PM
My shoes size is 11. I'm pretty damn proud of my shoe size. Would you like me to shove one of my shoes up your ass, so you may know what a size 11 feels like?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:28PM (1 child)
I'm glad you had the source, because I was going to cite the same example but couldn't remember the name of the episode.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 18 2017, @04:17PM
I watched B5 again about six months ago. Remembered it was season 1, because of Sinclair. Couldn't remember episode. Googled for badly mangled spelling "icaran", "babylon 5", and got link to the Ikarran page, which then had a link to the episode page Infection at which point I mumbled "oh, yeah, that's it".
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @03:40PM (2 children)
Racial purity was a recurring theme in B5. The Hyach [wikia.com] caused their own eventual extinction by purifying their race when they genocided their Hykado ancestors. The Minbari [wikia.com] were made racially impure by one promiscuous Human time traveler.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Friday August 18 2017, @04:14PM (1 child)
Well, it's a good thing then (not really) that the Shadows and the Vorlons had sufficient time to become racially pure. And ideologically pure. (Uh oh!) And ethically pure -- oh that reminds me of Forbidden Planet 1956 movie.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @04:24PM
The Vorlons can kiss my Zog.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @02:53PM (6 children)
I have no intention to use these services, but when they advertise with 'customers' saying like "oh, i'm half jewish, half muslim" (or something similar, i forgot, but it was something like that) i just look at it and think "well, that's complete bullshit". I don't know how specific religions have anything to do with DNA.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday August 18 2017, @03:34PM (5 children)
There's a reason that this is a bad idea. Counterintuitive as some may find it, more datapoints does not always lead to better analysis. Genes that give their bearers survival advantages will be represented way out of proportion to their actual significance in the context of ancestry, and can even appear to show strong ancestral links where no such link exists at all.
So, that's not a real analysis just observations but assuming I am not missing something big here (I have NOT deeply investigated any of the newer tests and might well have missed something) they cannot be very accurate at all.
However, the results sent are very precise! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_precision
And all those graphs and charts, in full color glossy. How could anyone doubt?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday August 18 2017, @05:20PM (4 children)
You misunderstand genetics. A mitochondiral analysis can tell you about your mother's mother's mother's .... people, and a y chromosome analysis can tell you about your father's father's father's ... people, but you've got 22 other chromosomes that tell different stories about their history, and just to make things interesting chromosomes occasionally split and rejoin. (Still, mitochondria and the y chromosome are so short that's not likely to happen in THOSE cases, though mitochondrial genes have very poor error correction.)
Everyone's a patchwork. If you go back around 3,000 years, everyone alive then is either the ancestor of everybody (outside of Africa?) or of nobody. And the comment about Africa is basically because that area hasn't been studied sufficiently. It's probably true including them also. Racial characteristics are superficial...and probably intentionally so. There's speculation that one of the reason people spread so is that many people feel uncomfortable around those that look different than they do. If so, then in past times those who are currently the "idiotic White Supremacists" would have been "those hardy pioneers venturing into new lands". And they might willingly accept a high mortality rate to live somewhere with only people like them. Perhaps Mars or the Moon. Unfortunately, that would also require a high technical ability and the ability to focus for a long time, something that is a separate evolutionary development, and one that most, but not all, of them conspicuously lack.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @06:27PM (1 child)
a couple of comments:
1. I was born in Romania. I sincerely doubt I have any native americans in my genetic background (not that I would be upset about it, I just find it unlikely). So your 3000 years comment isn't really true.
2. The only reason subgroups of people leave their "home" is because they don't have enough resources there. For instance hunter gatherers in Africa would have followed animal migration routes; at some point, when the tribe got too big and people started fighting over water, different subgroups are likely to have gone off in different directions, and then not want to come back together again.
While astronauts and Columbuses may themselves do it for the thrill, society funds their adventures, ultimately, because it wants to get more resources.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 19 2017, @06:25AM
I must have explained myself clumsily. What I meant was that there is an ancestor within that time period who is an ancestor of both you and of the people of the Americas. I didn't mean to imply that this ancestor lived in the Americas, OR that s/he lived in Romania. IIUC the most like site of the MRCA would be somewhere in the middle east, or even east of that.
Remember, you have two parents, four grand parents, eight great-grandparents, etc. Fairly quickly this number becomes larger than the number of people living on earth at that time. This is solved by multiple overlaps, but it still "quickly" becomes true that for any person that long ago, either everyone is descended from them or nobody is. (Note that this doesn't imply that even a single gene of that person was carried forwards, as those segregate at each generation, halving their contribution to each descendant. [Well, approximately halving...things are a bit more complex than that, but it's close.])
See Dawkins "The Ancestors Tale" for an explanation by someone who's better with words than I am.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Friday August 18 2017, @08:45PM (1 child)
"A mitochondiral analysis can tell you about your mother's mother's mother's .... people, and a y chromosome analysis can tell you about your father's father's father's ... people, "
Correct
"but you've got 22 other chromosomes that tell different stories about their history"
Incorrect. This is exactly where you are wrong. They do NOT tell stories about ancestry! Not with accuracy, at any rate.
They are the *result* of evolution, *not* a record of it. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
"If you go back around 3,000 years, everyone alive then is either the ancestor of everybody (outside of Africa?) or of nobody. And the comment about Africa is basically because that area hasn't been studied sufficiently. It's probably true including them also."
More ignorance. In fact the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for humans is many many times further back than that. Mitochondrial eve (MRCA for females) was ~200k years ago (estimates vary but certainly in excess of 100k) while Y-Adam (MRCA for males) was ~250k years ago (again, estimates vary, but it's clearly over 200k.) The true MRCA for both sexes will obviously have to be prior to either of them. 3000 years? What kind of crackpot are you smoking?
"There's speculation that one of the reason people spread so is that many people feel uncomfortable around those that look different than they do."
Still confused. People do not necessarily do this. People DO tend to like faces that resemble those of their childhood caregivers, but that's not the same thing. A black kid adopted by a loving family of blue-eyed blondes would prefer faces like those of his family, not his own, for instance. And frankly I think it's silly to pretend this childhood programming leads directly to adult racism - only in people that fail to grow up does this lead to anything more than wistful poems about Mothers Love.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 19 2017, @06:16AM
The most recent common ancestor along which path? The mitochondria are only one of numerous paths taken. The blood type separation goes back to before when we split from the chimpanzees. But when I say "most recent common ancestor" I'm counting ancestry along any of the chromosomes...and it's no where near as far back. Read Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale" for a better explanation of what I mean.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @03:21PM (1 child)
NiggerCommando and The Niggery Uzzard are shocked, shocked to find that they are actual niggers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @10:32PM
Hi bud, do you need a hug? I know TMB can be a bit much sometimes, but you shouldn't let it drive you over the cliff of sanity. Lets have a real life meetup everybody, this AC is apparently in desperate need of some real human interaction.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:46PM
This highlights the distinction between DNA and identity. Most populations are going to run into this issue time and again if they're trying to base their identity on their genes. There are some edge cases like, say, Icelanders or isolated tribes from Papua New Guinea, where the purity is going to be near 100%, but most places that have had contact, trade, and wars with others will have had consensual or non-consensual mixing of genes.
That will not stop the engines of identity, though, as this case is demonstrating. People identify as one thing or another because they choose to identify as one thing or another. If they have been raised their whole lives to believe that they're Armenian, and they have constructed their identity, their sense of self around that, then showing them a DNA test that shows they're 25% Turkish is not going to dissuade them. What's more likely is they'll cling to and assert their Armenian identity all the more fiercely, especially if an aggrieved sense of victimhood surrounds that construct.
It's why I'm generally not in favor of that tribalism, as I think of it, that so many practice. Try foods and customs from all peoples. Live in another culture for a long period and experience culture shock and living according to a different world view than you grew up with. Travel. Learn another language. Read the works of great authors from a different continent. Walk a mile in another man's shoes.
After that, it's fine if you celebrate Georgian Christmas or relish the pierogies your mom makes for Thanksgiving, but then it's like putting on your old clothes rather than believing that's the only set of clothes a 'normal' person can wear.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @03:55PM (1 child)
Is it a slow day for submissions, or what?
There is nothing new about eugenics among ethno-purist nutjobs. It's boring.
This article is nothing but hot, fresh flamebait and serves no constructive purpose.
I would have thought better of SN editors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @04:33PM
Kaaaahhhhnnnnn!!!!!
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @04:22PM (1 child)
Spent the last year screaming nazi at everyone.. Hey her family was nazis!
comedy gold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @07:45PM
Not quite the same thing, and not some sort of comedy gold. But sure, keep trying to equalize racist fuckers with people who don't like racist fuckers. Yeah, makes sense.
Just an FYI here: all your comment does is cement you as a nazi yourself, or at best a sympathizer. If you are just complaining about liberals using the term "nazi" then you're an ignorant fool and should go review some of the protest footage from Charlottesville and read up on some of the propaganda. If you still can't see that we do indeed have a nazi problem then you're beyond hope.