Stream of Stuff

[makc]

They had NO control over my height... snip

Misconception, I say. Do you really expect a giant to be born to family of midgets? If the correlation between their height and yours is not enough for you to call it "some degree of control", there is always an option to abort the fetus if some parameter is wrong and try again, or go for in-vitro fertilisation. Granted, some particular parameters may not be available or too expensive to control using technologies of today, but there is still theoretical possibility...

Regardless, I say comparing skin color to height or eye color is a bit misleading, too. I mean, you do not "happen to be white", as in "coincidentally my skin is the same color as in this group". You actually belong to this group, statistically. Unless you are one of these guys. That's because you don't get whole cities populated with blue eyed people only, but there are such cities with white people (or any other skin color people). So, from this perspective, the only way to get rid of racism would be to mix the races heavily for centuries, until there will be no city on the planet dominated by single race.

[makc]

an average generation length of 30 years, one need go back no further than 1000 years, before one's ancestors alive at that time, outnumber the current population of the Earth.

Which is clearly impossible, right? Your calculations do not account for inbreeding.

[makc]

...and from here I ended up on wikipedia. and 4 posts away from 2k.

[Nitpicker]

an average generation length of 30 years, one need go back no further than 1000 years, before one's ancestors alive at that time, outnumber the current population of the Earth.

Which is clearly impossible, right? Your calculations do not account for inbreeding.

I was merely doubling the number of ancestors for each earlier generation.

[makc]

Here's nice quote on subject:

Demographer Kenneth Wachtel estimates that the typical English child born in 1947 would have had around 60,000 theoretical ancestors at the time of the discovery of America. Of this number, 95 percent would have been different individuals and 5 percent duplicates. (Sounds like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but you know what I mean.) Twenty generations back the kid would have 600,000 ancestors, one-third of which would be duplicates. At the time of the Black Death, he'd have had 3.5 million - 30 percent real, 70 percent duplicates. The maximum number of "real" ancestors occurs around 1200 AD - 2 million, some 80 percent of the population of England.

Admittedly, this sort of inbreeding is really more philosophical than genetic. Again, this is a matter of exponents. Of our 23,000 protein-coding gene base pairs, we get 11,500 from each of our parents, 5,750 from our grandparents, 2,875 from our great-grandparents, and so on. That repeated division means that by the fifteenth generation - which is only a few centuries ago - your average ancestor (assuming zero inbreeding) is contributing, on average, less than a single gene to your current genome. Go back a thousand years to the 30th generation, and the average genetic contribution is effectively zero.

[owlice]

They had NO control over my height... snip

Misconception, I say. Do you really expect a giant to be born to family of midgets? If the correlation between their height and yours is not enough for you to call it "some degree of control", there is always an option to abort the fetus if some parameter is wrong and try again, or go for in-vitro fertilisation. Granted, some particular parameters may not be available or too expensive to control using technologies of today, but there is still theoretical possibility...

Regardless, I say comparing skin color to height or eye color is a bit misleading, too. I mean, you do not "happen to be white", as in "coincidentally my skin is the same color as in this group". You actually belong to this group, statistically. Unless you are one of these guys. That's because you don't get whole cities populated with blue eyed people only, but there are such cities with white people (or any other skin color people). So, from this perspective, the only way to get rid of racism would be to mix the races heavily for centuries, until there will be no city on the planet dominated by single race.

My parents had no control over my skin color, and neither do I. Nor my eye color, height, cafe au lait birthmark on my left knee, or detached earlobes; they couldn't select for nor choose or change any of these things, no matter how much you might want to believe they did.

[makc]

Ha ha, now this post is so much different from what you said before and gives me new reasons to consider as to why they had no control over named things... NOT

Then again, it does push my train of thought... towards the people who always complain about their life and claim they have no control over it... slaves by choice, if I can call it so.

[Beyond]

My parents had no control over my skin color, and neither do I. Nor my eye color, height, cafe au lait birthmark on my left knee, or detached earlobes; they couldn't select for nor choose or change any of these things, no matter how much you might want to believe they did.

Ah, two more clues, once i find out what detached earlobes are.

[geckzilla]

Do you feel in control of your skin color, mak?

[wonderboy]

unable to detect his own odor

why do people keep saying that? this is urban legend. if your nose works you can smell it.

He says he can't. Given his lack of reaction I believe him.

I believe you'll find thats because all humans, whether you admit it or not, like the smell of their own farts!

[owlice]

makc, I have plenty of control over my life; my life is not my skin, eye, nor hair color.

beyond, earlobes are attached, detached (or unattached, I should probably say), or somewhere in between.

[wonderboy]

makc, I have plenty of control over my life; my life is not my skin, eye, nor hair color.

beyond, earlobes are attached, detached (or unattached, I should probably say), or somewhere in between.

for some periods of my life I was not in control of my earlobes... rather, my teacher was... and I had been a very naughty boy haha.

[owlice]

lol, wonderboy!

[makc]

makc, I have plenty of control over my life;

hold on, I did not include you into that group specifically, did I? no need to be defensive. in fact, this whole argument of whether we have control over things... how do I put it, I am not pushing it to certain outcome. it's just that seing one side of an argument under-represented makes me post stuff to increase the balance, you know... I have no control over it

how do you define control? I mean physically. in terms of absolute causation, as in newton era? don't we now believe in probabilistic paradigm? as in: if your action increases probability of certain event, you can be said have control over the event.

Do you feel in control of your skin color, mak?

I'm not Michael Jackson, so no But I do have control over skin color of my children. If I don't want black children, for example, I do not... engage in sexual activity with black women.

[wonderboy]

makc, I have plenty of control over my life;

hold on, I did not include you into that group specifically, did I? no need to be defensive. in fact, this whole argument of whether we have control over things... how do I put it, I am not pushing it to certain outcome. it's just that seing one side of an argument under-represented makes me post stuff to increase the balance, you know... I have no control over it

how do you define control? I mean physically. in terms of absolute causation, as in newton era? don't we now believe in probabilistic paradigm? as in: if your action increases probability of certain event, you can be said have control over the event.

Do you feel in control of your skin color, mak?

I'm not Michael Jackson, so no But I do have control over skin color of my children. If I don't want black children, for example, I do not... engage in sexual activity with black women.

no one is in control of their skin colour, not even michael jackson! and as far as having black children only with black women or men is concerned, it is not always the case. its a poor example but Natasha Hamilton from atomic kitten has a black father even though she is white and therfore carries the appropriate genes to give birth to black children irrespective of the colour of the father. why is this even an issue!?

[owlice]

makc, I have plenty of control over my life;

hold on, I did not include you into that group specifically, did I? no need to be defensive. in fact, this whole argument of whether we have control over things... how do I put it, I am not pushing it to certain outcome. it's just that seing one side of an argument under-represented makes me post stuff to increase the balance, you know... I have no control over it

how do you define control? I mean physically. in terms of absolute causation, as in newton era? don't we now believe in probabilistic paradigm? as in: if your action increases probability of certain event, you can be said have control over the event.

Do you feel in control of your skin color, mak?

I'm not Michael Jackson, so no But I do have control over skin color of my children. If I don't want black children, for example, I do not... engage in sexual activity with black women.

no one is in control of their skin colour, not even michael jackson!

Especially now.

[geckzilla]

Michael Jackson is an excellent example of how little control we have over our skin color. We are all subject to whatever proteins our genes instruct our bodies to synthesize. Jackson had vitiligo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitiligo

[makc]

@wonderboy, I did acknowledge these exceptions way above, when I said

Unless you are one of these guys.

And again, with probabilistic interpretation, exceptions do not matter.

@geckzilla, of course I did bring MJ up for the sake of making a joke, not as a serious argument. why don't you please attack probabilistic notion of control instead? that could be far more interesting.

edit: 2k!

[owlice]

Why should she, since the reason you're posting in this vein is to increase your post count?

[geckzilla]

I'm not attacking anything. Do you feel attacked? Maybe that's just your ignorance slipping away.

[wonderboy]

i feel quite safe, just sitting here blaming my teacher for provding me with a detached ear lobe!

[makc]

I'm not attacking anything. Do you feel attacked? Maybe that's just your ignorance slipping away.

oh, please. now you are trying to insult me instead of attacking the target I suggested. which you simply can't attack. fine with me, I rest my case then.

but, since you were more interested in MJ case, may I suggest this guy instead:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

this guy ate loads of silver and turned blue your move.

[wonderboy]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/too-m ... 34703.html

A girl turned yellow after too much Sunny Delight (a delicious but color inducing soft drink).

Contrary to your beliefs, if the egg from the girl and the sperm of the man were to interact and produce a baby, it would not be green, or a silver orange! hahah. im not attacking for the record.

[geckzilla]

Right. Just like you can dye your hair purple if you'd like or get a tattoo. Now you are conflating ideas.

[Beyond]

I'm not attacking anything. Do you feel attacked? Maybe that's just your ignorance slipping away.

oh, please. now you are trying to insult me instead of attacking the target I suggested. which you simply can't attack. fine with me, I rest my case then.

but, since you were more interested in MJ case, may I suggest this guy instead:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

this guy ate loads of silver and turned blue your move.

That's because the silver he consumed was to big to pass through the channels of elimination the body has. IF he had used micro-colloidal silver instead, he wouldn't have gotten that way.