Incoherent Babbling

[MetropolisAngel]

...are all meaningless social constructs that only exist because humans need an excuse to exercise their natural urge to hate, fear, and discrimate. 

If you think any of these things matter, your death shall be especially slow and agonizing once I enslave and exterminate the human race.

[Last_Words]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

...are all meaningless social constructs that only exist because humans need an excuse to  exercise their natural urge to hate, fear, and discrimate. 

categorize everything they see because of the effect language has had on our collective psychology over the millenia.

If you think any of these things matter, your death shall be especially slow and agonizing once I enslave and exterminate the human race. then that is your problem, not mine.

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Fixed.

[Texface-Killah]

i'm a proud latino. i love checking that box. i get upset when the box for latino/hispanic isn't there and i have to check off "white". i agree with you for the most part... but i have a naive sense of pride when it comes to my "race"

[MetropolisAngel]

I never understood why anyone would be proud of something they have no control over.  I mean, I never CHOSE my race.  Why be proud of it?

[NaBraniel]

Uruk-Hai
Maleish
Proletariat
Slowmosexual

[Setsuka]

Can I call you whitey?

[kangocon]

How can you deem these people lowly but then threaten death upon them. You're no better then they are, wishing death upon someone just because what they think or believe. Hypocrite.

[Texface-Killah]

i dont understand why i cant be proud of being latino. we have so many cultures and customs that i love sharing with people. i love explaining those little things about myself... idk, i just get a really warm fuzzy feeling of pride everytime i get to share something about myself with others... even if it's as small as checking off the "Latino/Hispanic" square in a job application.

[MetropolisAngel]

It's called SARCASM, genius.

[MetropolisAngel]

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?  I don't see how one's race is an accomplishment.  I mean, race does exist in a purely superficial way - unlike gender - but, like I said before, it's purely a social construct.  At the end of the day, people are nothing more than glorified ape-men.  We're all the same.  Focusing on things like race only serves to make us think we're different, which naturally leads to hatred and prejudice.

[Setsuka]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?

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No.

Pride isn't reserved for anything.

Anyone can be proud of anything.

There is such a thing as baseless pride, you know.

[MetropolisAngel]

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Setsuka wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?

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No.

Pride isn't reserved for anything.

Anyone can be proud of anything.

There is such a thing as baseless pride, you know.

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Of course there is such a thing as baseless pride.  That's my entire point.  Pride based on race is completely baseless.  It's absolutely devoid of any logic or sense.

[Setsuka]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

It's absolutely devoid of any logic or sense.

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Isn't that true of almost all pride?

Pride itself doesn't really make a lot of sense to begin with.

[MetropolisAngel]

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Setsuka wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

It's absolutely devoid of any logic or sense.

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Isn't that true of almost all pride?

Pride itself doesn't really make a lot of sense to begin with.

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Neither do any other human emotions.

[Setsuka]

But pride doesn't accomplish anything.

And if you really wanted to, you could find reasons to undermine anything that someone has to be proud of.

You're the smartest guy around? What are you so proud of, you were born naturally more intelligent than those around you.

You worked your way to the top from the bottom? What are you so proud of, even with all your hard work, without chance and some luck you wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

So, if you take that view, ultimately there's no reason to be proud of anything.

[Texface-Killah]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?  I don't see how one's race is an accomplishment.  I mean, race does exist in a purely superficial way - unlike gender - but, like I said before, it's purely a social construct.  At the end of the day, people are nothing more than glorified ape-men.  We're all the same.  Focusing on things like race only serves to make us think we're different, which naturally leads to hatred and prejudice.

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but we're all unique in our own way. if you want to get rid of the racism inside of you, one thing you have to accept is that all people are different. you cant tell me that mexicans are the same as japanese people. they have different customs, family traditions, a completely different culture. thats doesn't make one better than the other, but they are different. and there's nothing wrong with being proud of that. pride doesnt have to be reserved for accomplishments. if you dont take pride in yourself, you won't accomplish anything.

[MetropolisAngel]

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Setsuka wrote:

But pride doesn't accomplish anything.

And if you really wanted to, you could find reasons to undermine anything that someone has to be proud of.

You're the smartest guy around? What are you so proud of, you were born naturally more intelligent than those around you.

You worked your way to the top from the bottom? What are you so proud of, even with all your hard work, without chance and some luck you wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

So, if you take that view, ultimately there's no reason to be proud of anything.

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Setsuka wrote:

But pride doesn't accomplish anything.

And if you really wanted to, you could find reasons to undermine anything that someone has to be proud of.

You're the smartest guy around? What are you so proud of, you were born naturally more intelligent than those around you.

You worked your way to the top from the bottom? What are you so proud of, even with all your hard work, without chance and some luck you wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

So, if you take that view, ultimately there's no reason to be proud of anything.

---

Take, for example, someone who was born crippled, but still managed to run a marathon - or someone who was born retarded, but still graduated college and became successful.  Those things are still accomplishments, even if chance did have a role in them.  Pride itself is indeed silly and foolish, as you stated, but I'd say that someone who overcame the odds and accomplished something meaningful would certainly have more reason to be proud of themselves than someone who just happened to be born white and never did anything worthwhile in their entire lives.  If a person's race is their biggest accomplishment, that says quite a lot about how completely pathetic they are as a human being.  But, then again, human beings themselves are pretty goddamn pathetic as a whole.

[Setsuka]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But, then again, human beings themselves are pretty goddamn pathetic as a whole.

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And so, there's no point in dwelling on the most pathetic ones.

If it's all they have, would it really be right to take it away from them?

Even the ones who do no harm?

I say as long as they're not hurting anybody, let them have it.

I won't ever respect them, but that's no reason to take away the only thing someone has to feel good about.

[MetropolisAngel]

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Texface-Killah wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?  I don't see how one's race is an accomplishment.  I mean, race does exist in a purely superficial way - unlike gender - but, like I said before, it's purely a social construct.  At the end of the day, people are nothing more than glorified ape-men.  We're all the same.  Focusing on things like race only serves to make us think we're different, which naturally leads to hatred and prejudice.

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but we're all unique in our own way. if you want to get rid of the racism inside of you, one thing you have to accept is that all people are different. you cant tell me that mexicans are the same as japanese people. they have different customs, family traditions, a completely different culture. thats doesn't make one better than the other, but they are different. and there's nothing wrong with being proud of that. pride doesnt have to be reserved for accomplishments. if you dont take pride in yourself, you won't accomplish anything.

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The reason that Mexicans are considered different than Japanese people is because of the culture they set up for themselves, though.  It's not the people that are different  - it's the culture.  When people say they "love" or "hate" a particular race of people, they are thinking in bold generalizations.  No two people are the same, and race has nothing to do with how a person acts.  Environment and upbringing ultimately determine a person's behavior.  It's a classic case of nurture over nature.  I'd imagine that a Mexican child raised in Japan would act the same way as most of their Japanese peers, and vice versa.

[MetropolisAngel]

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Setsuka wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But, then again, human beings themselves are pretty goddamn pathetic as a whole.

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And so, there's no point in dwelling on the most pathetic ones.

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I'm actually just dwelling on some of the things that make humans so pathetic in general.

[Setsuka]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

I'm actually just dwelling on some of the things that make humans so pathetic in general.

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But why do even that?

You can't change human nature and people themselves don't change.

It accomplishes nothing.

[MetropolisAngel]

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Setsuka wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

I'm actually just dwelling on some of the things that make humans so pathetic in general.

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But why do even that?

You can't change human nature and people themselves don't change.

It accomplishes nothing.

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I suppose it provides a sort of catharsis, along with forcing people to confront their own deep-seated flaws as a species.  Most of them will just continue to live in blissful ignorance, of course, but at least a few people might be compelled to actually stop and think about where we're headed as a species.

[Last_Words]

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Texface-Killah wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?  I don't see how one's race is an accomplishment.  I mean, race does exist in a purely superficial way - unlike gender - but, like I said before, it's purely a social construct.  At the end of the day, people are nothing more than glorified ape-men.  We're all the same.  Focusing on things like race only serves to make us think we're different, which naturally leads to hatred and prejudice.

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but we're all unique in our own way. if you want to get rid of the racism inside of you, one thing you have to accept is that all people are different. you cant tell me that mexicans are the same as japanese people. they have different customs, family traditions, a completely different culture. thats doesn't make one better than the other, but they are different. and there's nothing wrong with being proud of that. pride doesnt have to be reserved for accomplishments. if you dont take pride in yourself, you won't accomplish anything.

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It may not have been a personal accomplishment, but those cultures also didn't just pop into existence out of nowhere. It took centuries for our ancestors to develop them. The same is true of intelligence in general... none of us would be as smart as we are if it weren't for thousands of years of research and stumbling, as it were. Recognizing the triviality of arbitrary differences among humans is ultimately not an original realization, an accomplishment among any individual living today, it's old news. Taking pride in these inheritances, in this birthright of being human and having culture, having intelligence to develop it, is perfectly valid.

"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"

[Setsuka]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

 Most of them will just continue to live in blissful ignorance, of course, but at least a few people might be compelled to actually stop and think about where we're headed as a species.

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We're not headed anywhere.

Humans are the same as they've always been and will always be.

At least until an extinction event wipes them out.

And you can't force anybody to acknowledge anything they don't want to acknowledge.

[Texface-Killah]

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

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Texface-Killah wrote:

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MetropolisAngel wrote:

But isn't pride reserved for accomplishments?  I don't see how one's race is an accomplishment.  I mean, race does exist in a purely superficial way - unlike gender - but, like I said before, it's purely a social construct.  At the end of the day, people are nothing more than glorified ape-men.  We're all the same.  Focusing on things like race only serves to make us think we're different, which naturally leads to hatred and prejudice.

---

but we're all unique in our own way. if you want to get rid of the racism inside of you, one thing you have to accept is that all people are different. you cant tell me that mexicans are the same as japanese people. they have different customs, family traditions, a completely different culture. thats doesn't make one better than the other, but they are different. and there's nothing wrong with being proud of that. pride doesnt have to be reserved for accomplishments. if you dont take pride in yourself, you won't accomplish anything.

---

The reason that Mexicans are considered different than Japanese people is because of the culture they set up for themselves, though.  It's not the people that are different  - it's the culture.  When people say they "love" or "hate" a particular race of people, they are thinking in bold generalizations.  No two people are the same, and race has nothing to do with how a person acts.  Environment and upbringing ultimately determine a person's behavior.  It's a classic case of nurture over nature.  I'd imagine that a Mexican child raised in Japan would act the same way as most of their Japanese peers, and vice versa.

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you're right. but i think you're confusing culture with stereotypes. depending on where you go, each type of society lives their lives differently. it's not wrong to participate and embrace a certain culture, especially if it was the culture you were born into. if you're just there not taking part or having fun because you're too busy "practicing your individuality" then you're just being an ass  hole. i just dont understand why i cant be proud to be a mexican american. maybe i'm practicing my individuality by being aware of the culture we set up for ourselves and choosing to embrace it.

not all mexicans act the same. everyone acts differently. being proud of where you come from has nothing to do with how you behave either.