We scream africa africa.but hold up i dont think they want us back b.

[-Vincenzo-]

we talked about this before on here and actually there was and is a lot of reaching out to each other

 

[judahxulu]

we talked about this before on here and actually there was and is a lot of reaching out to each other

exactly. this thread is bullshit

 

[Mr.Burns]

dumb ass thread...b

 

[im_lux]

I dont know where yall live but its a lot of africans here that dont like us at the fuck all. I know a few black folks that went on them mission trips that USED to have those same move to africa thoughts and they went everywhere they could not just mission work.

 

[DarcSkies]

so we just gone act like black americans dont make fun of Africans like we aint from there ourselves?

 

[EuropeanAndWhite]

yeah read up on the Liberian civil war and how Americo-Liberians discriminated against native Africans

dont let h-rap read this shit.

and young ice is right. culture > race

 

[Huruma]

And culture is more important than race.

It's more significant in the grand scheme of things

Neither culture, race or ethnicity matter in the 'grand scheme of things'. In terms of how humans relate to one another, I think ethnicity and culture are more important than race.

You could still argue for unity between Africans and people of African descent from Latin America, the U.S, the Caribbean and even the Middle East and India (descendants of East African slaves brought by Arab traders) on the grounds that they share a common ethnic heritage, being of (modern) sub-saharan African descent, and not strictly race alone (since this wouldn't include Melanesians from countries like Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji etc. who I consider to be racially Black but aren't of African descent) but I don't see this as practical. I'm not opposed to it but I don't identify with it. I haven't since I was like 17.

 

[Huruma]

How is culture not significant?

culture is a building block for how humans behave.

It's even part of how humans think.

there are IQ tests that have been deemed untrustworthy when testing african americans because they are at a cultural disadvantage.

Are the ways in which we think, eat, speak, and act not relevant in the grand scheme of things compared to how we look?

I know you're tired of hearing this but I say it because I think it's rational, what matters in the grand scheme of things is pleasure and pain. Everything else has instrumental value only in relation to pleasure or pain.

 

[Huruma]

the way people think affects the two ideas of pleasure and pain.

i.e. masochists, sadists etc.

What causes a sadist pleasure might not cause a masochist pleasure and Japanese people might not express certain emotions the way that Khoi-San hunter-gatherers do but the basic, inherent goodness and badness of pleasure and pain is universal among all sentient beings. Whether or not different people have different 'ideas' about pleasure and pain, the actual emotions are universal (at least in the same basic way, if ants can feel pleasure I don't know exactly what it might feel like but for them it must have the same basic desirableness).

 

[Huruma]

Well then I have to ask you this:

Do you consider pleasure the same as happiness?

Yes, I use 'pleasure' and 'happiness' synonymously to refer to any positive emotional experience. In terms of quality, I don't think there are higher or lower forms of pleasure, pleasure differs only in terms of quantity. This is off topic, I guess, but my point is that culture, ethnicity, race, family etc. matter because humans are highly social animals who need to form/belong to groups and relate to others and the nature of empathy is discriminating but there's no intrinsic value in belonging to a certain ethnic group or preserving culture for it's own sake.

 

[Huruma]

a sense of belonging can be a source of pleasure.

Exactly but that's instrumental value (ie. it's good because it causes pleasure), not intrinsic value (ie. it would be good for it's own sake, even if it wasn't a source of pleasure).

and what about too much pleasure that leads to pain and unhappiness?

All and only pleasure is intrinsically good but pleasure can be instrumentally bad just like pain can be instrumentally good.

 

[Huruma]

so then how does one determine the value of pain and pleasure if ideas on them can be so subjective?

Value itself is an emotional concept. Nothing could have 'value' for an emotionless but still conscious robot, the concept would be meaningless for it since it wouldn't desire or fear anything.

If value itself is an emotional concept, it makes sense that positive emotion has positive value and negative emotion has negative value.

People believe that things other than happiness/suffering have intrinsic value because the idea of things other than pleasure and pain can be pleasing or distressing (ie. you don't want to be cremated because the thought of being cremated is distressing even though nothing can actually cause you pleasure or pain once you're dead). Some people claim that naturalism is incompatible with the idea of 'value' but value is subjective so I don't see why it needs an objective 'validation', it's perceptually obvious that pleasure and pain has value. I can't prove this empirically but I think it's rational, I think it's a philosophical true that exists beyond individual opinion or cultural norms. I can't empirically show that I'm conscious either but it's still true or untrue.