"Alt-right" Parading Ignorance, Stupidity, Malice, Etc.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Little did I know that there are two identical statues in existence, one of which represents Septimus Severus and the other, Quintus Lollius Urbicus, of whom I was unaware there were any extant images at all. Amazing the things you learn; too bad they have only desultory acquaintance with reality.

[Galaxian]

Little did I know that there are two identical statues in existence, one of which represents Septimus Severus and the other, Quintus Lollius Urbicus, of whom I was unaware there were any extant images at all. Amazing the things you learn; too bad they have only desultory acquaintance with reality.

Here's the source:https://libral.org/vb/showthread.php?t=225791&page=4. Even ignoring the marble bust, there's still the name. And his father's name; Marcus. All very Moorish Moroccan. So, if they used Romanised names, then why? Only if they were forced by racism. So the proposal is proved yet again. And if the statue has disappeared in these 1800 years, then how come so many statues of European dignitaries still survive?
So the long & short of it is that the cultural mixing was so limited that it is insignificant. It is like the "token" foreigner, the "uncle Tom" , the female board member of some decades ago; put there to 'prove' that there is no segregation.

If there was mixing of the sub-species, as much as now, then why, after these thousands upon thousands of years have they been so separated and diverse? Why did languages diversify and only start dying out recently? Since the plurality of languages is a good indicator of population segregation.

Ascribing current social values to ancient civilizations is nothing but wishful thinking & an excuse for PC social engineering

[pErvinalia]

There's no such thing as sub-species of human. Don't believe your alien overlords. They are lying to you. That's what alien overlords do. I thought Galaxian would have worked this out by now.

[Galaxian]

There's no such thing as sub-species of human. Don't believe your alien overlords. They are lying to you. That's what alien overlords do. I thought Galaxian would have worked this out by now.

That's strange, since I'm married to one. We're even mutually infertile, so can technically be described as different species. But I'll be generous & unscientific, and stop at us merely being subspecies.

If we had bred with one of our own (sub)species, there would be no problem. We'd reproduce easily with no complications. But since we chose to shack up with a dissimilar (sub)species, only by modern medical intervention did we overcome the infertility.

There have been long threads on this topic in RDF, RatSkep, and even on your site, Rational Forums. Please read them up.

[pErvinalia]

My ex-wife was definitely another species...

[Forty Two]

I've looked for a thread like this here, and failed to find it. If there is one, please merge.

Here's a good example of the ignorance of white supremacists:

"Alt-right commentator claims Romans weren't ethnically diverse, gets owned by actual historian"

If you're going to pick a fight with someone over ancient Roman facts, arguing with a historian is probably not the best course of action.

Infowars editor at large and right-wing YouTuber Paul Joseph Watson recently tweeted an insinuation that Roman Britain wasn’t ethnically diverse.

A bit of a bizarre claim to make out of the blue, but the reason for his outage stemmed from a five-and-a-half minute BBC educational YouTube video on what life was like in Roman Britain.

• Thank God the BBC is portraying Roman Britain as ethnically diverse.
  
  I mean, who cares about historical accuracy, right? pic.twitter.com/SqE83Pmf2h
  
  — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) July 25, 2017

The video, aimed at supporting teachers, is suitable for 7 to 11 year-olds and details what life was like for a typical family during the Roman period.

The cartoon that accompanies the video features everything from gladiator battles, the purpose of Hadrian's wall and the religious make up of Roman society.

It also features a series of ethnically diverse characters, which is what appeared to anger the Infowars host, who implied that the BBC didn't care about 'historical accuracy'.

It was following these claims of historical inaccuracy that historian Mike Stuchbery stepped in.

In a series of hugely informative tweets, he described how Roman Britain was ethnically diverse “almost by design”.

He explains that Roman troops were drawn from other parts of the empire, and occupied Britain.

The slack-jawed goons of the 'alt-right' will be supplying plenty of material for this thread.

I think the issue here is in phraseology. I don't think it is alleged by any significant historian that Roman Britain was "ethnically diverse." Most of the people who lived in Britain were Celtic Britons at the time. White. The Romans themselves were overwhelmingly white. This was especially true in the early days of "Roman Britain" which started in first century BC, and at that time and for like 200+ years the army was a volunteer army that did not allow barbarians into the ranks.

The evidence for black or other non-European ethnicity is mostly anecdotal from cherry picked stories. The genetic research finds nothing beyond traces of sub-Saharan genes in areas where Roman legions were located (France, Gaul, and even Spain, where most of it came much later from the Arab trade). There would be nothing typical about the image portrayed by the BBC which engendered the comment.

Also, at the time people from North Africa looked no different from Spaniards, S. Italians, and Greeks. Punics/Phoenicians we now know, looked Canaanite, just like Southern Europeans. Berbers looked like mountain berbers today. So representing “diversity” is really about the difference between locals and Romans (Northern European vs Mediterranean), not within Romans overall.

I mean, as a representative heuristic, the idea that it would be typical to have mixed families like that in Roman Britain is just not accurate.

[Galaxian]

My ex-wife was definitely another species...

Very droll!
Infact there are debates as to whether the genders are technically different species. On some planets there are 3 and even more genders. But staying on Earth for now; the definition of a species is one that can breed within itself. Most humans are cross fertile. Some, such as my partner & I, are not (except by medical intervention, but then, even sheep & humans can be forced somehow; thus sheeple! ).

There's not much difference between true sub-species, since they can produce fertile offspring. Indeed, some degree of dissimilarity produces hybrid vigor. Too much produces hybrid depression (as it is tending towards speciation). The best vigor seems to be at the 3rd to 4th cousin distance (Danish study).

But anyway, Galaxian has no dog in this fight. Nature will sort itself out by & by....

[Brian Peacock]

Galaxian: "On some planets there are 3 and even more genders"
You know that Star Trek isn't a documentary don't you?

[Galaxian]

Galaxian: "On some planets there are 3 and even more genders"
You know that Star Trek isn't a documentary don't you?

Isaac Asimov revealed it to me just before he died.
It's actually a natural deduction, just as some species here have several life-stages (such as parasitic worms).

[pErvinalia]

[L'Emmerdeur]

For any who care to educate themselves on what classicists have to say on this topic, I'll point out that Mary Beard linked to two other respected historians of the era in the portion of her post that I linked above. Both of them essentially agree with her, and with Stuchbery. There really isn't any serious debate among those who're up to date on recent discoveries and what is known of the Roman presence in Britain. As Neville Morley (Professor in Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University) writes:

What is surprising about these two arguments is that the substantive issues – ancient statues were painted, the Roman Empire (including Britain) was ethnically diverse – are such old hat. This is stuff that today’s professional classicists and ancient historians take pretty well for granted, as a starting point for more detailed and interesting investigation – and yet the statement of such facts appears as an extreme provocation to certain people. The instinctive response is “That cannot possibly be right!”, followed by speculation about why someone would nevertheless promote an idea that cannot possibly be right (tl;dr: it’s all about the Political Correctness).

[Emphasis mine]

What we can see here is that there are those who think their demonstrably shallow knowledge qualifies them to expound authoritatively while ignoring what actual historians have to say, which is good for a smile, if nothing else.

[Animavore]

PayPal, GoFundMe, And Patreon Banned A Bunch Of People Associated With The Alt-Right. Here's Why.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgomer ... .kegLLVwOW

To many right-wingers, this fight over online payments is yet another battle in what they perceive as a nationwide war on their protected speech.

This is contradicted in the very next sentence.

Now some are attempting to build their own crowdfunding and payment processing platforms that will be sympathetic to their divisive politics.

Sorry. Where are the anti-free speech laws which are preventing you from doing this?

[Brian Peacock]

Come on Ani. Any time anyone objects to anything a fascist, a racist, a or a homophone has to say then the principle of free speech is being undermined - because fascists, racists, and homophobes are a 'specially protected group.

[Forty Two]

Regarding the diversity of Roman Britain, the historian Mary Beard said there were indeed dark-skinned people in Roman Britain. The historian Nicholas Taleb said that a mixed family was not typical of the time. Those positions are not inconsistent.

The reality, though, is that of course there were people who traveled and then settled in other lands. However, the "diversity" of Roman Britain was not particularly significant. It's not as if they had black neighborhoods, or had 10 or 20% of the population being black and intermixing seamlessly. It wasn't some immigration melting pot or multicultural community.

Most of the soldiers in early Roman Britain were white and mediterranean in origin. As Roman Britain progressed, most soldiers who were not strictly Roman were drawn from Gaul and Hispania, and the Greek areas of the Empire, and then later from Germanic tribes. The people of Roman Britain were by and large Celtic, with similar groups like the Picts in the vicinity (who were white).

I think to say it was "diverse" we'd first want to know what percentage of the population counts as "diversity." If there were 1 sub-saharan African per 1,000 walking around Londinium in AD 100, would that make the population "diverse?" What rate do people think was prevailing at that time?

Also, does being from what is now Turkey count as "ethnic diversity" in AD 100? Not really. But, the population of people who emigrated from that vicinity in AD 100 was not very high. Even in Roman times, where they had far better roads than in other places in the world, emigration was not common. One might say that China was diverse in the late 13th and the 14th centuries. But, was it? There were a bunch of white Europeans who went there, and some impregnated local Chinese women, and some stayed there for extended periods of time and even permanently. Does that make it ethnically diverse? Would we make a documentary about China and show as a heuristic a family with an Italian father, and mixed race Chinese-Italian kids? Likely not, I suspect.

[Brian Peacock]

Depends on your definition of ethnicity I guess. If ethnicity is defined by skin tone, then perhaps not.