Instigator / Pro
18
1417
rating
158
debates
32.59%
won
Topic
#2528
On Balance, Everyone Born With Exact Same Physical Traits Would be Beneficial to Humanity
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 5 votes and with 13 points ahead, the winner is...
RationalMadman
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
31
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Description
what exact same physical traits? Take the current average height, weight, muscle proportion, etc. Everyone is now born precisely the same look. (But personality, talent, DNA itself may not be the same) I am arguing, that despite the lack of difference in physical (potential biological ramifications), the solution to racism outweighs this negative impact.
Round 1
throughout humanity, we have valued liberty over life, as many have died for the cause of human rights. We have considered it better to die than to live under oppression and unfair nature of life. There have been countless of lives and problems claimed by Racism already, with many listed on https://www.un.org/en/letsfightracism/stories.shtml, Psychological research having this problem, and even crimes resulting from racism: "Using panel data from several hundred African American male youth from the Family and Community Health Study, we find that racial discrimination is positively associated with increased crime in large part by augmenting depression, hostile views of relationships, and disengagement from conventional norms. "
There have even been health problems from racism: "Persistent and vexing health disadvantages accrue to African Americans despite decades of work to erase the effects of race discrimination in this country. Participating in these efforts, psychologists and other social scientists have hypothesized that African Americans’ continuing experiences with racism and discrimination may lie at the root of the many well-documented race-based physical health disparities that affect this population. With newly emerging methodologies in both measurement of contextual factors and functional neuroscience, an opportunity now exists to cleave together a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which discrimination has harmful effects on health. In this article, we review emerging work that locates the cause of race-based health disparities in the external effects of the contextual social space on the internal world of brain functioning and physiologic response. "
Being born the same can be problematic in one area, especially if the same disease can wipe out an entire tribe or even city. But I say it is preferable that we die together, than live separated. For the human unity is what allows us to progress forward, consider that we work best in teams, as a whole. The racism has caused slavery; endless suffering among the blacks, and the division of men/women has caused gender issues, with believing women are weaker, suited towards being at home, and less deserving of rights. But in this world, we a TRULY born equal. No one is disabled, no one can be looked down upon for what they could not change. They are only judged for circumstances and their reactions to them, the ability to make a better life for yourself. And that equality, the power of mankind working together without racism, is far stronger than any potential problems arising from a local disease bypassing our similar immune system or DNA.
Forfeited
Round 2
extend
Forfeited
Round 3
extend
The problem with this debate lies in the very structure of BoP and how Pro is going to sidestep everything I say.
For instance, in the comments section this was raised:
Unless it is hive-mind, having a world where legal ID Is impossible would be not my cup of tea.Having freedom of thought would create problems. Some people will be satisfied while others are furious that they look the same as everyone else. I suggest asexual reproduction? Because there is only one gender? Identity scans will be a trouble because everyone Look the same, and everyone can use all others’ identities, making crime identification impossible. How is this good?
To which Seldiora felt he had sufficiently handled the entire remark by Intelligence_06 by replying the following:
fingerprints are still different.
This would become his reply-style to each and every single contention I'd bring up that would explore the flaws of a society where everyone has the same features, strengths and weaknesses. I could argue about reproduction problems, he'd reply 'that would be diverse enough to have variation in the non-physical parts of DNA' so on and so forth.
I forfeited 2 Rounds not out of poor conduct but out of apprehension of not wasting your time, voters. You were the ones I didn't want to waste the time of as we go back and forth with me poking holes in the 'everyone is the same' world and Pro simply saying 'but here's my loophole out'.
I spent my time during the 2*2-day Rounds to come up with the following arguments, these I feel are irrefutable and the loopholes Pro makes to defend against them will be easy to handle in the final Round.
Contention 1: Sports and the performance arts are utterly annihilated.
The problem with this world that Pro hypothesises is that unless Pro is going so extreme with how the brains vary, the variation in brain is still going to limit everyone to a near-identical capacity to produce results and/or masterpiece performances in sports and the arts (which is physiological by the way but I'll 'allow it' as he's referring to how hormones and brain structure can alter depending on childhood environment and lifestyle).
What makes sports worth having and makes the performance arts fascinating is that variations in physiques allow people to shine in different roles, different art-styles, so on and so forth. I don't really think I need a source for this.
To be clear, the performance arts I'm referring to include dancing, acting, on-stage theatre (and/or opera) as well as basically anything in life, even teaching students, where it's far easier for them to remember 'this is my mathematics teacher and he/she/they taught me this, whereas that one taught me that. There's so much to how problematic it will be but I'll leave the flaws for later contentions. This contention is solely that sports and the performance arts are entirely ruined as the physiological variation that allows such creativity and beautiful variation within the performances is obsolete.
Contention 2: The virtue-signalling about how racism will be removed fails to understand what prejudice is and that racism is only one form.
In this parallel reality, we are all originally the same race and ethnicity it would seem (I say seem, as he's not made clear how the males and females vary in order to reproduce or if that's done via cloning, since if they reproduce sexually it defeats the entire resolution a few generations down the line when there's variation amongst everyone). This 'same race' aspect is true and I won't fight Pro on that, it will be fairly impossible to be racist but all other forms of segregation can somewhat occur due to the said variation in personality and hormonal-based differences in appearances that will result.
For instance, there won't be 'tall and short' by nature, instead those that are shorter can be brutally mocked and blamed as their slouching or poor diet (which may be due to poverty and inability to afford good food and have the spare time to exercise well, since they have to work nonstop to get by financially). Those that are taller can now be envied on a whole new level because they quite literally are 'superior' for being tall, since there's no luck in the genes to blame instead.
In other words, prejudice will be more brutal and severe both based on disgust and envy since it quite truly is down to the individual that they have any/all negative traits that they have. There's an apparent urge to conform to the 'united identity' and anyone who strays from the norm is seen as a toxic outlier simply being different for the sake of it.
The world will actually have more socially-accepted attitudes towards bullying as they will see it as a healthy deterrent to 'defiers of our true nature' so to speak.
Think about it, what is prejudice based on?
Influences that cause individuals to be racist or sexist, for example, may come from peers, parents, and group membership. Conforming to social norms means people adopt the “normal” set of behavior(s) associated with a particular group or society.Social norms - behavior considered appropriate within a social group - are one possible influence on prejudice and discrimination.People may have prejudiced beliefs and feelings and act in a prejudiced way because they are conforming to what is regarded as normal in the social groups to which they belong:The white miners were conforming to different norms above and below ground. Whether or not prejudice is shown depends on the social context within which behavior takes place.Pettigrew (1959) also investigated the role of conformity in prejudice. He investigated the idea that people who tended to be more conformist would also be more prejudiced, and found this to be true of white South African students.Similarly, he accounted for the higher levels of prejudice against black people in the southern United States than in the north in terms of the greater social acceptability of this kind of prejudice in the south.Rogers and Frantz (1962) found that immigrants to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) became more prejudiced the longer they had been in the country. They gradually conformed more to the prevailing cultural norm of prejudice against the black population.Evaluation: Conformity to social norms, then, may offer an explanation for prejudice in some cases. At the same time, norms change over time, so this can only go some way towards explaining prejudice.
In a world where we are all truly 'the same' superficially and conforming in looks from the get-go in life, the attitudes will be more geared towards segregating against outliers not less.
Contention 3: Crime... Oh lord, all kinds of it.
So, in the comments section, Pro said that magically they have different fingerprints but what about impersonation and fraud? Every single crime could be pinned on literally anyone, even the chief of the police, since everyone looks identical. It could be that cops get a hairstyle that others are banned from donning but even so, solving crimes would be an extreme nightmare.
Identification of a suspect by an eye-witness
Identification by an eye-witness arises when a witness who has seen the offender committing the crime is given an opportunity to identify a person.
Cases when the suspect’s identity is not known
In cases when the suspect’s identity is not known, a witness may be taken to a particular neighbourhood or place to see whether they can identify the person they saw on a previous occasion. Code D sets out the formal procedures that should be followed, including the requirement for recording the full details of the circumstances of any identification by the witness.
^ Can you imagine that process or anything remotely close to it in and around forensics and physical crime-solving that will work in this world? We are told they have different DNA but how different can it really be.
Contention 4: The reason Incest is taboo and outlawed in almost all cultures is based on genetic decay that happens when people are too similar.
Inbreeding can lead to higher frequencies of genetic defects. Inbreeding occurs when the alleles at a gene site are identical by descent. This can occur when a common ancestor appears on both the maternal and paternal side of the pedigree. In recent years, dairy bulls with high genetic merit for performance traits have been used extensively in artificial insemination programs. As a result, inbreeding levels have been increasing in some dairy breeds due to the extensive use of a few individual bulls and their offspring.
The biological effects of inbreeding depression in humans are largely obscured by socioeconomic and cultural influences on reproductive behavior.[5] Studies in human populations have shown that age at marriage, duration of marriage, illiteracy, contraceptive use, and reproductive compensation are the major determinants of apparent fertility, even amongst populations with a high proportion of consanguinous unions.[6] However, several small effects on increased mortality,[7] longer inter-birth intervals[7] and reduced overall productivity[5] have been noted in certain isolated populations.
Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to demonstrate the effects of inbreeding depression, through numerous experiments on plants. Darwin's wife, Emma, was his first cousin, and he was concerned about the impact of inbreeding on his ten children, three of whom died at age ten or younger; three others had childless long-term marriages.[8][9][10]
Every single recessive allele in the different people would have higher and higher chances of being passed down. People wouldn't even know how close of a relative it is that they're reproducing with. Think about it, the world would be a genetic nightmare.
Round 4
well played. I concede
why
If we have some differences then we would have variations anyway. Me, a 14yo Asian intelligent teenager, My dog, A woman I crashed with on the subway, an ant, they all share the same ancestor. Just some cells touching with each other results in this heaven of an ecosystem where some offsprings are fighting with others because things happen.
That's a good strategy. One of these days I should read The Art of War.
This made me think of the movie gattaca.
Hypnotise the opponent, make them not want to win.
This is the true mastery of the art of war.
(my interpretation of one of Sun Tzu's teachings).
Yup, that's pretty good.
I'll give it a read later when I have a second.
Fully agree. you could basically boil down the fingerprint thing as special pleading as well.
This debate may interest you, Round 3 has the juicy part.
"exact same physical traits" this would include finger prints, to say otherwise would be untopical, or an argument that is ignoring the constraints of the resolution.
fingerprints are still different.
I have thoughts, but I don't want to hand out arguments to either side, so I'll just see how things go.
Discrimination will always happen unless everyone is the same, which can make legal problems impossible to solve. I would prefer where there is diversity and there is potential discrimination, because we can at least be able to find who committed racism against other groups.
Unless it is hive-mind, having a world where legal ID Is impossible would be not my cup of tea.
Having freedom of thought would create problems. Some people will be satisfied while others are furious that they look the same as everyone else. I suggest asexual reproduction? Because there is only one gender? Identity scans will be a trouble because everyone Look the same, and everyone can use all others’ identities, making crime identification impossible. How is this good?
the science behind why inbreeding destroys bloodlines due to maladaptive recessive alleles becoming commonly activated in the genes among the later generations is going to be a major contention of mine.
https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=what-are-the-effects-of-inbreeding
thoughts on this one?