Racism and the Uncanny Valley?

So, Racism and Discrimination exists, but what causes it?

If it's purely visual, then I wonder if there could be a situation similar to the Uncanny Valley/

The uncanny valley is a term used to describe the relationship between the human-like appearance of a robotic object and the emotional response it evokes. In this phenomenon, people feel a sense of unease or even revulsion in response to humanoid robots that are highly realistic.

I don't think it's purely visual, but the labels in the past seem to say that.

I don't claim to be an expert on anything about this, but to me this could be similar. I think this could even effect someone with Downs Syndrome or a facial disfigurement.

What do you think?

Nobody is born racist.

I find the Middle-Ages quite uncanny.

Those metal armors, or some of the torture devices.

Even the tarot and art from then.

Colonial tribal art less so, because many of those masks and cultures still exist.
So despite their beauty, they don't have this lingering shock-value of European medieval things for me.

Because looking at medieval things, it's really the first robotics.
And it's somewhere in my ancestry, this pointy metal shoe, this Pinocchio nose, these batty ears.
I can almost reach the meaning ... but it's gone.
Forever.

There are the initial Western colonial encounters since Columbus, and later Africa and the Pacific.

During those encounters I don't think race had much to do with it at first.

Of course there was older racial prejudice, which I think really started as a class marker that came with agriculture.

Simply put, the peasants who worked the fields went darker in the sun than the royalty.

Later the upper and middle-classes copied that.

So even for me being German heritage (white) that is an issue, because when I go to the bar in summer after working out with my trainer, people say to me - yeah and get this, and I'm white - you look like a homeless person or a "poor white".
But then I think what does being "white" mean?

If I'm freezing I go blue.
If I go in the sun I'm red.
Usually I'm pink.
Only in shock do I go white.

Wow hey, and we called other people "coloreds".

Joke, but it's a global thing, also in Asia and Africa.
It's not simply being Caucasian, it's the class hierarchy in those cultures which colonialism bolstered, but which already existed before the time.

And it's not going away anytime soon either.
Simply lumping "racism" onto European males (probably the most liberal males on the planet at the moment generally) certainly ain't changing nothing globally.

a reply to: CryHavoc

Behavior causes racism.

Learned behaviour.

Racism doesn't exist without behaviour. Sure, you secretly think racist thoughts, but society only gets to recognise actions of racism to label them so.

originally posted by: CryHavoc
So, Racism and Discrimination exists, but what causes it?

If it's purely visual, then I wonder if there could be a situation similar to the Uncanny Valley/

The uncanny valley is a term used to describe the relationship between the human-like appearance of a robotic object and the emotional response it evokes. In this phenomenon, people feel a sense of unease or even revulsion in response to humanoid robots that are highly realistic.

I don't think it's purely visual, but the labels in the past seem to say that.

I don't claim to be an expert on anything about this, but to me this could be similar. I think this could even effect someone with Downs Syndrome or a facial disfigurement.

What do you think?

I don't think it applies to Downs Syndrome because they are clearly very human despite the difference. Same goes for disfigurement, I don't really think that that is what is meant by uncanny valley, but I may be wrong, I see it more as an absence of something that isn't quite tangible, you can't put your finger on it you just know something isn't there. My son and I have been watching Attack on Titan, and have discussed uncanny valley in the context of the titans so it may just be my misunderstanding but I think of it more in terms of the main character in Patrick Susskind's Perfume. He doesn't have a smell or body odour and it influences how he is perceived so he manufactures one. I think of it more like that. I wouldn't personally apply it to racial discrimination, that has far more to do with cultural norms and social conditioning, may be a little instinctivism. Uncanny valley I see as more instinctive.

Generally unsure though.

a reply to: sunkuong

Both race and gender are performed.
Yeah, by everybody.

a reply to: CryHavoc

Racism is cultural. It is caused by one race thinking that it is better than another.

Look at Cortez, he looked down on the natives and thought that he was better than them because he came from a more technologicaly advanced society. But the natives looked up to him, at least at first because their culture told them that he was important.

Both sides were just as different but only one side thought that it was superior.

Antisemitism is a form of racism where both parties may be the exact same race, and visually indistinguishable from each other.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

The conquistadors did not act alone.
Both Cortez and Pizarro married local princesses (although they first made sure these were baptized).

Apparently the greatest slaughter in Tenochtitlan came when the native allies of the Spanish had free reign, basically after the surrender.
The Aztecs didn't exactly rule by winning friends.

And to think, Pizarro was actually saved at the battle of Lima by the Indian army of his mother-in-law.

a reply to: CryHavoc

"The average person is not racist. They will accept a person for who and what they are. Upon reflection, it is the woke mob who is racist. They wallow in racism and if they can't find it, they make it up." - Somebody on the internet

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: CryHavoc

"The average person is not racist. They will accept a person for who and what they are. Upon reflection, it is the woke mob who is racist. They wallow in racism and if they can't find it, they make it up." - Somebody on the internet

To be honest, a lot of what gets called racism these days is often simply some form of disagreement between a white person and a non white person, that's attributed to race with no real proof.

Unless somebody drops the n word every 10 seconds a lot of these disagreements often have other causes.

Like apparent racism in the music industry that's a actually due to big label pushing cheap pop songs 24/7 rather than race.

a reply to: ManFromEurope

We humans may interpret unfamilair settings and react negatively. So if a child who has never seen a black or white person may say "racist" things.

I think initial racism is mostly visual. And beyond visual is learned.

What I also find uncanny is ancient Mayan art.

It's pre-Columbian, so race is not involved.



Of course in a Karmic sense, the worst genocides were very similar cultures.

Like eventually attracts like.

Others were conquered, perhaps with some atrocity, but also paternalism.
Considering disease and intermarriage, some populations dwindled more by happenstance, rather than hatred.
But the worst was probably the destruction of Carthage by Rome.
I mean that was just an ancient holocaust.
And those people were so close.

The genocides in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the 1990's.
In both cases the perpetrators and victims were not people terribly removed from another.
In fact, in many cases they were former neighbors.
The same of the holocaust and what happened in Europe.
People who today we might say are indistinguishable.
In fact, they got to wear different stars and triangles and symbols to mark their difference from each other.

One tiny difference - to make me inhuman.
Now that is scary.

Yip scary indeed, and the so-called bringers of "social justice" are flaming that hell every day.

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
Nobody is born racist.

what aboot that, the first thing you have ever said here that I agree with.
noted.

originally posted by: halfoldman
a reply to: sunkuong

Both race and gender are performed.
Yeah, by everybody.

This is so true. You got the gears in my head grinding now... and it's not exactly a new concept to me. But for some reason, it sparked extra plugs this time.

Both are completely contrived and are performed through actions. And those actions, no matter what the purpose or motivation driving them or promting them, become stereotypes. Which leads to confirmation biases based on individual perceptions and experiences. And this is just the beginning.

I'm gonna have to think on this some more. Thank you!

Also in the 20th century Marxist/socialist parts of the world 40 million people were killed conservatively because they weren't the right class.

For example the Bolcheviks would say, go kill all the Kulaks in that town.
Who is a Kulak?
The one with wooden walls is peasant; the one with stone walls is Kulak.
That's also a historical nightmare.

And thank god not everyone is born European.

a reply to: ManFromEurope

Racism isn't a visual phenomenon of human behavior.

It is a learned behavior based on a collectivist view of a society and assumed roles and customs (culture) within a subset of that society.

Take people at an individual level and learn to leave collectivism at the door and you'll eventually get rid of racism.

originally posted by: sunkuong
a reply to: CryHavoc

Behavior causes racism.

Learned behaviour.

Racism doesn't exist without behaviour. Sure, you secretly think racist thoughts, but society only gets to recognise actions of racism to label them so.

Exactly.
Most of what people consider today as racism is actually culturalism.

Their beliefs tend to be a reflection of their experiences and a bi product of how the parents raise the kids.

a reply to: CryHavoc

I think that race war is really all about class war if we are honest.

The only colour that matters is green.