Category: Culture
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Humanity is smarter than the sum of its individuals
We live in a world of wonders. Airplanes take us across the world, computers connect us digitally, and antibiotics cure us of infections. But how does any of this work? Do you know? Does your neighbor know? Billions of humans beings use mobile telephon…
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Dance like a monkey American politicians!
I have no real comment, aside from the fact that when I this video I started and I realized what it was about, I began to laugh really loudly and without any self-control. Am I the only one? By coincidence I saw this video right after noting that Parag Khannna has a new book…
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A film of the Jarawa people
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Indian culture started when the British arrived: tales of shadology
When looking at Google Scholar after reading the paper on South Asian pigmentation, I came across this work, The Unfair Selection: A Study on Skin Color Bias in Arranged Indian Marriages: Underlying the growing popularity of skin-lightening or fairness cosmetics in India is one of the most baseless biases experienced and practiced. Yet, the overriding…
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Obscurantism in the service of transformation
The paper, Ancient Admixture in Human History, was peculiar as far as genetics publications go in that it foregrounds particular abstruse statistical methods developed due to the stimulus of genome-wide variation data. The surfeit of genomic data has resulted in the emergence of many subtle and almost impenetrable works laced with formalisms which daunt most…
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Culture can be more powerful than biology
An interview with the author of I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan. It’s a difficult listen. Basically illustrates how in some “traditional” cultures women are treated like disposable and fungible property. As a geneticist and a father, one thing about “honor killing” that always strikes me is that it…
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Western Asians are Western
“Woke” minorities, especially East, South, & Southeast Asian ones, have a misguided attitude towards undoing colonialism. In most cases, they’ve totally internalized Western values and are often hostile to traditional ones, only seeking to guard things like food and music. pic.twitter.com/0tje676nxb — ahnqir (@ahnqir) April 30, 2018 The above diagram really hits at something important.…
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Bubba has the babies
Today Colin Woodward, author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, has an op-ed up, The Maps That Show That City vs. Country Is Not Our Political Fault Line: The key difference is among regional cultures tracing back to the nation’s colonization. Woodward’s thesis is basically that the…
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Are pants really more comfortable than skirts?
Recently I stumbled upon this paper from a few years back, The invention of trousers and its likely affiliation with horseback riding and mobility: A case study of late 2nd millennium BC finds from Turfan in eastern Central Asia. Basically, it seems that trousers emerge with mounted cavalry. The dominance of mounted cavalry in the…
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Dallas area teen wins National Spelling Bee
Though Texas doesn’t get all the glory! The National Geo Bee was won by a kid from Northern California.
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When writing about India is actually just writing about America
The web magazine Slate posted a piece, Friends From India which I had initially thought was a parody. Its subtitle is: “I grew up watching the show in Mumbai. I worry about the damage its gender stereotypes still do there.” It’s really bizarre. The author is Indian, and supposedly is making a comment about India.…
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Diaspora culture are often more conservative
Zach made a comment below about conservatism and Diaspora cultures. There are two trends one has to highlight here. One the one hand Diaspora cultures often exhibit synthesis with host cultures and can be quite novel and innovative. But there is another trend which is a cultural universal: Diaspora cultures often exhibit archaism and crystallize…
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Why do Indians care about OIT/AIT
From my blog: Razib: I follow your super feed and read your postings here and on Brown Pundits. The subject of the ancestry of South Asians comes up frequently. It seems to have a political valence that I, as an outsider, do not understand. Can you explain it? or point us to an explanation? My…
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Good night Avcii, you lived before you died
Like many people I didn’t know much about Avicii when he was alive, though now I know much more that he has died. He stuff played while I was on the computer in the lab, or when I was working out. Avicii for me was the anti-Kardashian, as I had no idea who “he” (I…
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South Asians and “communalism”
In Who We Are and How We Got Here one of the things that David Reich states is that while China consists to a great extent of one large ethnic-genetic group, India (South Asia) is a collection of many ethnic-genetic groups. To some extent, this is not entirely surprising. People from the far south of…
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The continuity of a people
From a comment below [edited]: The Chinese and Egyptians are an interesting case in this because they had one of the earliest written scripts (or rather tradition across generations to impart and carry information) and it was spread over long surviving/thriving timelines. But then Egyptians lost the linguistic capability and lost their history even though…
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Humanity’s Genes Reveal Its Tangled History
Reality, it turns out, is more complex and interesting than scientists ever imagined.
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The duty to kill your friend
In the late 1980s Morgan Llwellyn wrote a novelization of the legends of Cu Chulainn, Red Branch. One of the most dramatic passages involves the fight between Cu Chulainn and Ferdiad mac Daman. In the end Cu Chulainn kills Ferdiad (in a rather underhanded manner), because they were champions who represented rival tribal confederacies in…
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Asabiyyah in Steve King’s Iowa
If I reflect on my nearer extended family one curious aspect is that we seem to have a habit of moving a fair amount. My immediately family immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh. But we’ve relocated a few times since we moved to this country, going from one coast to another. But this pattern…
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Asabiyyah in Steve King’s Iowa
If I reflect on my nearer extended family one curious aspect is that we seem to have a habit of moving a fair amount. My immediately family immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh. But we’ve relocated a few times since we moved to this country, going from one coast to another. But this pattern…