Does Race Mixing Cause Inherited Diseases To Proliferate More Than Among Those Races That Do Not

If all races had the same skin color, do you think racism would still exist?

Yes - oh my God! YES!!!If you want to see a classic example, go to India. We are almost homogenous brown - to an outsider, we would all be the same fundamental color palette. To the outsider who does not know, there is incredible racism based on caste and religion in the country.We have reservations in education, employment and government based on caste. Girls marrying a boy outside their caste risk being brutally slaughtered in the name of honor killings. Some professions are limited to certain castes e.g. Manual scavenging. Infact, people from different states face severe racism in other states 'India is all about small minds': North-Eastern students at DU talk about discrimination, racismI think racism pertains to a group of people being considered superior than others. It is more pronounced and easier to identify when the people are visibly different. But it exists with deep roots even in extremely homogenous societies.Edit 1: I have received edits from people recommending I change ‘go’ to ‘come’. The choice of words is intentional in my answer since I am not currently living in India. Hence, the recommended change has been discarded.Edit 2: I have received several comments saying that the things I talk about (reservations, manual scavenging and honor killings) are a thing of the long forgotten past and no longer exist. I have also been told that I should better research the stuff and not try to project an incorrect image of the country. Hence, here are a few links to substantiate that none of the issues mentioned above are out-dated and these issues continue to happen even in today’s world. Also, remember that accepting the problem is the first step to resolution of any problem!Caste BasedReservations (shout out to Amar Prabhu for detailed stats!):https://www.quora.com/India-What-are-your-views-on-caste-based-reservation-system-in-India-1/answer/Amar-Prabhu?srid=z2wd&share=6ae29a8bManual Scavenging (has been illegal since 1992):(this article is from April 2016)http://m.timesofindia.com/city/b...Honor Killings inIndia:(this article is from May 23, 2016)http://www.thehindu.com/news/cit...(thanks to RudraniGhosh for this link)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho...

Overall do you think the British empire was a good thing or a bad thing?

If you mean judged by its long-term effects, then you’d have to say a good thing. Had the British never established their trading empire, there would be no United States, no Canada, no Australia, no New Zealand – not as we know them today. These are some of the most civilized, progressive, multicultural, and free nations in the world, and if I had to choose between them and modern Russia, China or Saudi Arabia, there would be no hesitation. It is also no coincidence that India is the world’s largest democracy. The founders of modern India, men like Nehru and Gandhi, were educated in England. And even today many of India’s elite go to the UK for their education. It is also arguable that the average African was safer, freer and richer under British rule than under men like Mugabe or Idi Amin. They were certainly better off in the British run parts of South Africa than in the Boer run parts.Obviously the empire itself was based on greed and exploitation, certainly at the start. But the history of humanity is the history of empires and, compared to most, the British empire was fairly enlightened, at least from the late 19th century until its collapse. It should also be remembered that in 1940 Hitler essentially offered the British a Devil’s pact. He more or less said “make a deal with us and you can keep your empire. We are both northern European master races and together we can rule the world.” But the British said no and basically self-sacrificed. They knew this meant the end for their empire, but they were not prepared to hold it down by force with SS troops backing them up. Yes, the British empire was involved in the slave trade, but it was also the British empire that stamped it out. In the early 19th century, British ships were stopping American ships in the Atlantic and freeing the African slaves on board – some even feared this might lead to war between Britain and the USA.Obviously there were atrocities, cruelties etc…the history of humanity is mostly the history of wickedness and cruelty and war and slavery and exploitation. But if you are being objective and fair, you’d have to say that the British empire, at least towards the end, was relatively enlightened and humane and that its long-term effects have been largely positive. Again, that does not mean it was morally sound. But it isn’t fair to compare a vast trading empire administered by civil servants to something like the Japanese, Nazis, Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin etc had planned.

As a writer, what things should you keep in mind when creating fictional races?

If you are talking aliens, think about the planet they live on and how it impacted their development, appearance, attributes, etc. One of my short stories featured a race of humanoids that were thin and 10 feet tall.I felt I needed an explanation for their different physiology, so I concluded their planet was either small or less dense than Earth, reducing the pull of gravity. A tall, wiry creature would have difficulty thriving in a high gravity environment since gravity would constantly tug at their brittle bones.So, armed with the knowledge gravity was less on their planet, I also concluded humans were capable of seemingly impossible feats of strength and jumping while there. This caused some consternation for one of my human characters since the aliens constantly asked her to “jump real high” for them. It will also come in handy in the next story when she offends their Queen and needs a quick escape.Back on Earth, the aliens mostly remained on their ship where they had controlled gravity. When they left the ship to visit humans, they got very tired.Then there is culture to deal with. I’m writing a book about a young elf who is banished and taken in by a family who descended from those banished long ago, so they know not of elven culture. I derive humor and conflict from this.Sexuality is yet another detail to consider. That alien short story I mentioned was actually erotica. The alien race was both male and female and Earth had moved towards a strict Matriarchal Society, which absolutely fascinated the aliens. A human woman helped introduce two alien “life-partners” to female dominant sexual activity. Having the equipment necessary to be either sex, the aliens we able to take turns.There’s all kinds of issues though. Are alien sex parts compatible with humans? How do these aliens decide who’s on top or bottom, male or female? Lucky for me, this couple had a masculine and a feminine preferring partner.Technology! What do they have that we don’t, and what advantages does it give them. Are there disadvantages? Are they so advanced they can’t defend themselves from a lead bullet anymore because they don’t use them?Eating and drinking. What makes them happy and full. Can they get drunk. Are there any common Earth beverages that will kill them?I’d love to go on, but need to return to my paying job :)

Which car/ car brand lasts the longest?

Perspective, I am an experienced automotive dealer. I do my very best to answer with objectivity, with the understanding that I have a natural biases.The Toyota answer is a good one…The average miles at over 200k is a great accomplishment. Well deserving. As an Automotive dealer, I have lots of used car experience and the market for preowned Toyota vehicles is vast and tough to beat (for the buyer/driver). The residual values are great (prediction by the manufacturer of the worth of the vehicle after a stated period of time). Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota, is famous for his will to create quality products and is quoted in many famous books including one of my favorites “Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday.Toyota also has a 16% stake in Subaru, which would be my second pick. The type of person that usually buys these cars (toyota and Subaru) are normally people that care about longevity and function. And I think it not coincidence that both of these brands offer great technology but not much in the way of “creature feature”. Creature Features are things that might make a person more comfortable but aren’t needed to make the car function better. A little more road noise is accepted to make the vehicle lighter to promote better fuel economy. Less power or electronic features are abandoned to lower the cost of repair and maintenance over the lifespan of the car. Many times these brands are late to the party with fancy infotainment systems and HD displays to be sure they function well before mass producing them. Both of these brands are going to be on the side of form and function rather than vanity, luxury etc.The Toyota Land Cruiser. It is a mass produced vehicle with specifically produced parts for that vehicle. Meaning it doesn’t share parts with another vehicle. For example the GMC Sierra 1500 shares a great percentage of its mechanical and cosmetics parts with the Chevrolet Silverado 1500. And that isn’t the case with the Land Cruiser, they are only specific for that vehicle. That is why they don’t change the car very often, which also helps with resale value. The vehicle is built around the idea of the car lasting 25 years instead of the normal 10 year. So it has thicker glass and a full stainless steel exhaust for extra durability. The price of the vehicle reflects these upgrades, coupled with the fact that the vehicles parts are not mass produced for other vehicles, the one I was eye balling when I bought my 4Runner was 92k.

What's the best way to cope with racism?

I’m going to change your “racism” to bigotry. Racism is just one of several forms of bigotry, all of them equally toxic.Consistently refuse to dignify bigotry by engaging with its offers of “rational discussion.” There’s nothing rational about bigotry. Seriously: nothing.Isolate it by excluding it from community dialogue. When a bigot walks into the room, walk out. Shun it.Refuse to tolerate bigoted expression, again, not by “countering it with rational argument,” but simply with the verbal equivalent of slapping it across the mouth.I could go on, but it all comes to the same thing: give bigotry no status. No tolerance for intolerance. No political home, no religious home, no home on the media, no home at the workplace, no home at the golf club. No home on the Internet. No home anywhere.Tie it off like a wart until it dies and falls off, letting healthy skin grow in its place.I know this goes against a lot of decent, tolerant, peace-loving people’s grain. They say:But bigots can be such nice people when they’re not being bigots. Some of my best friends are bigots. Fine. Just don’t put up with them being a bigot around you. When they start, turn your back on them and walk. They’ll get it eventually. Don’t ever compromise your values for the sake of your social needs.But shouldn’t we be educating them instead of silencing them? No. Education has been tried for over a century, and with a special intensity for the past three generations. Apart from some weakly-enforced legal reform measures, there’s been no observable change. Education is absolutely powerless in the face of people who actively and persistently refuse to learn.But what about their first-amendment rights? Their first-amendment rights guarantee their freedom from state prosecution for anything they might say. That’s it. That’s not infringed on by anything I’ve said here. Besides, every constitutional democracy that guarantees freedom of expression, including the US, has placed reasonable constraints on that expression. Some of these countries have included the public promotion of hatred against minority populations as one of those reasonable constraints. The US has not. It’s past time for the US to enact a federal hate speech law.

Is Earth overpopulated?

NO. We are “UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED”I would like to compare the area of the largest country (Russia) with densely populated countries (Bangladesh & Singapore)Why Bangladesh ?It is the 8th populated country (Russia is 9th) and area wise it is the smallest country in Top 10 populated country list.Why Singapore?It is the 3rd densely populated country (Macau & Monaco are too small to compare).Bangladesh - We just need 36.63% of Russia to accommodate the entire world if we match the density of Bangladesh.Singapore - A well planned country which can be considered as the best example. If we plan and accommodate the entire world population as densely as Singapore then we just need 5.66% area of Russia for 7.66 Billion people.So how big is Russia? - Our Dwarf Planet PLUTO’s Surface area is less than RUSSIA but it’s population is much less.Here is the comparison of all the 7 continents with the World’s Land Area and Population.So it is clear that with just 21 % area, “ASIA” alone constitute to 60% of World’s Population. So we are not overpopulated but “UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED”World’s Population will keep on increasing. In the beginning of 19th Century Life Expectancy was around 30–40 years and now it has increased by another 30 years. Decline in child mortality, decrease in health inequality, better health awareness, advancement in the field of medicine are some of the factor which contribute to increase in World population.Our World can accommodate more people. However, it is us human to decide whether it will be “LIVABLE” or not.

Do Indians smell differently than people of other ethnicities? If so, why?

Food and body chemistry can only explain a little bit. Overwhelmingly it is a matter of hygiene. Witness the jokes in India about Indians that return from the US. They find it hilarious the compulsion to bathe every day. We are a very clean society in the US. We probably bathe more than is really necessary for hygiene. Strong body odor is noticed immediately. I had been working from home for a few years, and lately returned to working in an office. After such a hiatus from being around people, everybody stank to me, regardless of national origin. But the worst is when someone thinks that cologne or deodorant can fix things. Being in a car with someone who hasn't bathed in the last week, and tries to cover it with cheap cologne, it's quite unbearable.I have been around a great many south asians who do not offend, and plenty of europeans and african americans who do. And this is really an entirely different matter than subtle differences in someone's scent based on genetics and diet. I can distinguish the unique smell of each member of my family even shortly after they have bathed. This is part of how we bond, or don't, as humans.EDIT: Some folks are blaming it on hairy bodies. Nope. I am a pretty furry mediterranean guy. As long as I shower regularly and use an effective antiperspirant, BO isn't an issue. Also, on comments about poor Indians: I'm talking about Indians working in the US in Information Technology. Money is not an issue for them.  Addendum. Got a new Indian guy in my office. I can smell his friggin' cologne from 20 feet away. Aaargh!EDIT #2: On another forum it was pointed out that laundry is another potential source of odor. That is, the clothes aren't being washed every time they are worn. I know that for myself, even washing after each wearing, after a certain period of time, some clothing items need to be discarded, as they have acquired more odor than can be washed out.

How will humans look 10,000-100,000 years from now? Do we have any scientific models on how our body, brain, mobility, etc. will change over the next 10,000-100,000 years?

Based on the evidence we have, you could make a case for head size going in either direction. Most of the other predictions are equally shaky. Sexual selection will probably have a stronger effect on future human faces than natural selection will.First, we should note that average human head size has actually been decreasing for the past hundred thousand years. You  need more brain to control more muscle, so this decrease probably didn't  mean any decrease in intelligence. Especially since it's been pretty much exactly proportionate to decreases in bone and probable muscle mass over that time, which we can estimate from the size of the parts of bones that muscles connect to.With that said, larger heads are possible. The size of the birth canal constrains head size; a baby with a very large brain wouldn't fit out, and so wouldn't have survived in evolutionary history. But now that C-sections are widely available, the selective pressure against larger heads is much weaker. So the trend of decreasing head size could reverse.What about the other predictions? *There's no good reason to expect a selective pressure for huge eyes. I am pretty sure people in the future won't forget how to make artificial light. And larger eyes (and larger visual processing centers in the brain, without which larger eyes are useless) could crowd out more useful functions. In fact, there's a hypothesis that that's exactly why Neanderthals couldn't out-compete us - they had more space in their heads devoted to eyesight, we had more devoted to social organization.*More skin pigmentation is certainly plausible, because radiation could  impose a very significant selective pressure on space colonists. I go into this in depth in my answer to What predictions can be made for the future of skin color in humans as we become interstellar travelers?*I strongly doubt that thicker eyelids and superciliary arches would provide enough protection from cosmic rays to have any selective benefit. The main risk from cosmic rays is cancer, not damage to your eyes or frontal lobe.*The prediction that faces will be more attractive by modern standards is likely. Sexual selection is important - almost certainly more important than all the other selective pressures mentioned in this article, especially because medicine and technology can even out an awful lot of health disparities.

Evolution says that white people evolved from black people, but could it be the other way around? Can scientists prove that black people didn't evolve from white people?

Evolution says that white people evolved from black people, but could it be the other way around? Can scientists prove that black people didn't evolve from white people?No.This is how genetic analysis suggests that early Europeans looked like around the time that middle eastern cultures were inventing farming:Image taken from: Early Briton Had Dark Skin and Light Eyes, DNA Analysis Shows.So it is worth noting that even if you reject the theory of evolution there is genetic evidence that the earliest inhabitants in Europe had dark skin. So whatever you chose to call them, the ancestors of today’s white people had dark skin. You might want to read this article here: Early Briton Had Dark Skin and Light Eyes, DNA Analysis Shows.Perhaps you feel that races are fundamentally different, and that you can reject evolution and find support for that idea elsewhere. And you can on unscientific racist websites and the the like but there is no reason to believe that they have better understanding of where white people come from, than the genes from the ancestors of white people.Some people imagine that what the bible teaches supports concepts of “pure racial blood” so they imagine that they can find support for the idea that the so called races have separate and distinct origins. This idea has no biblical basis the bible clearly states at Acts chapter 17 verses 24 to 26 , and I quote:“24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;” KJVSo long before the advent of science the bible taught that every person from every nation on earth are all blood relatives or are related. So it neither biblical or scientific to imagine that there is some sort of qualitative difference in race that would justify the statements about racially “pure blood” or any similar nonsense, because both science and the bible agree that we as humans are all of the same blood, or as we would say today we are all blood relatives. And all the available evidence suggests all of our early human ancestors had dark skin.