Yeah, I thought about that as well. If you have to distinguish things or people by different traits than before, you may get used to it.

MAybe again, it's because we all share the same genes for observation, distinguishing, memorizing, but we use them other way in Europe and other way in Asia or Africa.

It is greatly self absorbed to claim that humans are so diverse, while everything else is "all the same", so I agree partly to what you say, but I don't think that genetics are the main reason that we can differentiate individuals.
Practical experience is probably a bigger factor. Live close enough for a while to any kind of animal and you will start noticing those differences. Someone studying gorillas for example, will be able to tell them apart in a glance.
As an opposite example, if you take someone that has lived his whole life in a European village with only whites around and suddenly move him in Africa or Japan, he will have a great difficulty telling people apart for a while.

And the ability to adapt is strictly genetic ;)

Realistically there's probably elements of both, but from what I'm experiencing, I'd put my money on primarily exposure and necessity.

And yes, what I need to know here and how I figure it out is different from what you need to know and how you go about it. Which is different from the way that I would back home.

I'm mostly surprised that the change happened so quickly. It makes me a bit nervous for when I go back home.

It goes beyond that. For example in the (originally Finnish) article I linked earlier, the feminist organization inside the Green Party doesn't even want (nor let) men to join their ranks at all.

And I don't even consider that to be a militant die-hard organization, I think Finnish feminists are in general mostly quite moderate (or at least I hope so). I don't see it different than railway workers' union not wanting nurses to join their union (at least for decision making and such inside the organization), or vice versa. They want people that they feel will more certainly run their common agenda, not potential naysayers or even "moles".

Well, I'll have to be brutal, but they are just imbeciles. Feminism is not a war between men and women (with men "moles" working for a men agenda), it's a war between feminists and sexists, and there's a huge lot of ladies in the ranks of the latter. I just can't take seriously this finnish association, at whatever level. And I don't think anyone should.

Sir or madam, this post is golden.

Very true. Sexism among women towards men is a very common thing, even if only a minority do it deliberately and to an extreme.

Every time a woman screams out "MEN!" in frustration (unless in jest), makes claims that men are only interested in football, beer and video gaming, claims that a man couldn't run a household or look after the kids - that's sexism.

And yet, it's somehow accepted as a woman asserting herself. Yet when a man does the equivalent, it's seen as sexist.

Sexism as a whole is wrong and dangerous, but the selective definition of sexism is even worse.

Racism is pretty common all over the world, sadly.

Ecology is good but usually people don't give a shit, they use their car anytime and I personally know people who find a way to avoid separate collection (which is mandatory in my area) because "it's a pain". They know places in the countryside where there isn't separate collection but just the good ol' cans.

Smoking is bad for your body but it's good for taxes and cigarettes are legally sold almost everywhere, there are still lots of smokers (me too).

Finally, Steam is awesome. :P

It shouldn't have blown your mind.

Windows Vista has more than 50 million lines of code. With less than 1000 lines of code I can write a whole host of programs - that must be run on Vista as they're using its API - that do everything from allowing you to chat with a friend on another continent, figure out the day of the week you were born, format your harddrive, change the pitch of your music files, crack your password hashes, make your desktop background pulsate, and probably calculate your taxes too (I'd have to research that).

1000 lines of code is only about 0,02% of the whole codebase (I'm not even counting necessary drivers etc) - a miniscule quantitative difference, but a huge qualitative difference. Genes are basically algorithms, containing every step necessary to create the complex whole that is the human body. With such complexity, even the smallest change may have drastic outcomes, while at the same time larger changes may not make any difference at all.

So, talking about how "close" every human on the planet is the every other human, based on a small quantitative difference is - my wording - just bullshit. It's good propaganda, but as with all other misinformation, it'll also keep the divide between those pro and against (regardless of subject).

The above aside, by saying that the genetic difference is so small between "races" that there shouldn't be any differences in treatment, rights etc, actually makes the case that people with Down's syndrome probably should be treated differently - not because of different needs etc, but because here the statistical genetic difference is greater. Instead of using the magnitude of statistical genetic differences as an argument - which is bullshit anyway - one should focus on the relevant differences instead, i.e. relevant to human interactions.

Actually that is not even what I was meaning. I think the anti-woman sexism is way more widespread amongst women than the anti-male. A lot of women embrace completely the idea of nature assigning roles to women, and traditionalist family/society structures (with the homely woman caring for the household and prividing the "warrior's rest" for the active outside-oriented male). "Women are biologically better at dishwashing" is not only a man's (more or less explicit) discourse. Feminism also faces resistance from conservative women.

Which is, by the way, a separate issue from the question of feminist militants imposing roles to women, and considering as a betrayal any choice that match conservative systems, directly or indirectly reducing the available choices in a way that is analogous and symetrical to the conservative's. But the point is, conservative women often openly oppose the feminist struggle for equal opportunities and access to the whole realm of "gendered" roles.

Why stop there? According to the theory of evolution we have common ancestry with, say, elephants. Should elephants moving timber have the same voting rights as the human directing it?

That type of argument will only make a difference when you're "preaching to the choir" - and only in that you give them yet another useless argument to waste time with. Nobody on the opposing side will think "Hey, he's right - we're all africans!" and "mend their ways".

The racism debate is so littered with unrelated, incorrect, inaccurate and over-generalized arguments - on both sides - that the other side is given the opportunity over and over to re-enforce their believes because then can point out such fallacies in their opponents' arguments, which only makes each side more entrenched.

If humanity is ever going to "solve" the problems of racism, sexism etc, we need to start asking the questions that are actually important. Not "are men and women equal?" as they clearly aren't, nor "should men and women be treated equally fair?" as that's impossible - the definition of fairness comes in about as many ways as there are people alive, and is forever changing. No, in my opinion, the first question to ask is "what actually matters to humans, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, religion etc?".

My answer would be "freedom to be who they are", but there are probably better answers. Now, this may seem like a tall order, and maybe not much different from what the feminists, anti-racists, pro-gays etc are trying to do, and it both is and isn't.

If everyone's to have freedom to be who they are, said freedom must be limited in a way that doesn't limit others' freedom more. That's something each and everyone of us has to take part in - it's not something politicians can (successfully) force on anyone. Not all will, to the same extent anyway, but that's not something that can ever be "solved" so everyone should do themselves a favour and just accept that life isn't fair - there will always be differences and it's better to try to reduce the impact rather than trying (in vain) to erradicate them. (The way to true happiness goes through acceptance.)

The freedom to be oneself does not imply rights. That is, two gays that want to live together and actually do it, have the freedom to be who they are - gay and with a need for companionship. They don't have the right to be married, though - marriage isn't something you are, it's something you choose. Note: That doesn't mean gay marriages shouldn't be allowed, only that it's beyond the scope of freedom to be who you are. Marriage rights etc, while important to some, should have lower priority than granting everyone the freedom to be who they are - IMO.

By shifting the focus from "racism" (in quotes because it's almost never about racism both ways but just one), "sexism" (same as racism), "gays" (you guessed it; same as racism and sexism) etc, to everyone, a huge amount of "debate debris" simply disappears. Every cause that's based on a difference between one group versus another will fail if the goal is for the two groups to be treated as one - all fighting for that cause will only reinforce the distinction. If, on the other hand, the goal is to give one group an advantage compared to the other, it's the way to go.

So noted. But that just goes to show there seems to be wildly different ideas of feminism even among the feminists themselves, from "men can't be feminists" to "anyone who doesn't consider him-/herself a feminist hates women".

I feel I better not call myself a feminist then, just in case. The jury still seems to be out. I just say what I think about the surrounding issues, without clinging to any -ism.

Sounds like a good thing for everyone to live by, regardless of *ism =)

Well, that's stretching the definition quite a bit. If you go by that, then everything in the end is genetics.

That's the two ends of a spectrum? They are not mutually exclusive positions, let alone the fact that usually coincide.