[Somnambulist]

People need to stop wearing their bias as a badge of honor and imagining that the bias of anyone who disagrees with them is a Mark of Cain.  It's all bias, there is no "good" or "bad" biases.  In a world where most of us have nearly the balance of human knowledge accessible from our fingertips, we use it to confirm ignorance rather than expunge it.

+1

[MSJ]

Great post, H. I agree 100%. I also read where a guy was saying that the internet was thought of as a way to UNITE everyone. Instead, it has created bubbles or rather safe spaces. Where people only follow and listen to their beliefs. Instead of opening one's mind up, it has basically allowed them to have others that share their biases, confirm them.

[H]

Great post, H. I agree 100%. I also read where a guy was saying that the internet was thought of as a way to UNITE everyone. Instead, it has created bubbles or rather safe spaces. Where people only follow and listen to their beliefs. Instead of opening one's mind up, it has basically allowed them to have others that share their biases, confirm them.

Yeah, once upon a time, since everyone was more isolated, shitty ideas could only go so far.

Now, people get the option of "build your own bubble" and the echo chambers that come with it are loud, so loud that nothing else gets in.  You get all the confirmation bias, disinformation, misinformation and rabble-rousing you want, all at the low, low cost of nothing, since humanity is a object, not a quality, they think.

Every half-wit now has a soap box for their half-brained, ill conceived ideas.  And the rest of the half-wits flock to it, because it confirms their inflated opinion of themselves, "ha, I knew I was right!"

[MSJ]

Great post, H. I agree 100%. I also read where a guy was saying that the internet was thought of as a way to UNITE everyone. Instead, it has created bubbles or rather safe spaces. Where people only follow and listen to their beliefs. Instead of opening one's mind up, it has basically allowed them to have others that share their biases, confirm them.

Yeah, once upon a time, since everyone was more isolated, shitty ideas could only go so far.

Now, people get the option of "build your own bubble" and the echo chambers that come with it are loud, so loud that nothing else gets in.  You get all the confirmation bias, disinformation, misinformation and rabble-rousing you want, all at the low, low cost of nothing, since humanity is a object, not a quality, they think.

Every half-wit now has a soap box for their half-brained, ill conceived ideas.  And the rest of the half-wits flock to it, because it confirms their inflated opinion of themselves, "ha, I knew I was right!"

+1

Damn H, you're killing it today! I vote for H 2020!

[MSJ]

https://youtu.be/tyaEQEmt5ls

Just thought I would leave this here for everyone.

[H]

It certainly is interesting, but the initial interviews give you a really disheartening view of how clannish people can be, based upon what is essentially nothing. 

When asked by people what my heritage is, I tell them Italian, because both my parents were, my father's parents coming to the US direct from Italy (Calabria and Naples) and my mother's grandparents (Sicily and Naples).  I know enough of the history of Southern Italy to know that this probably means I am some part Greek, Southern Italian Norman,Spanish, North African, possibly French and whatever might be construed as Italian.  And that is to say that least.  The ignorance to think that there is anything such a "purity" is pretty gross, honestly.

That's not even the nonsensical idea of nationalism as somehow making you superior to anyone or any thing.  It's ignorance, plain and simple.  But we already know how much that appeal to people.  That narrative about identity there again...

[MSJ]

It certainly is interesting, but the initial interviews give you a really disheartening view of how clannish people can be, based upon what is essentially nothing. 

When asked by people what my heritage is, I tell them Italian, because both my parents were, my father's parents coming to the US direct from Italy (Calabria and Naples) and my mother's grandparents (Sicily and Naples).  I know enough of the history of Southern Italy to know that this probably means I am some part Greek, Southern Italian Norman,Spanish, North African, possibly French and whatever might be construed as Italian.  And that is to say that least.  The ignorance to think that there is anything such a "purity" is pretty gross, honestly.

That's not even the nonsensical idea of nationalism as somehow making you superior to anyone or any thing.  It's ignorance, plain and simple.  But we already know how much that appeal to people.  That narrative about identity there again...

Lol. When asked what my heritage is I always reply, Heinz 57, ain't got a clue what's in me.

[H]

Lol. When asked what my heritage is I always reply, Heinz 57, ain't got a clue what's in me.

That's pretty much my wife, although she has clues, some have proven to be outright wrong or misunderstood.  For example, she thought she was part Cuban, turns out that ancestor had come to the US via Spain itself, nothing to do with Cuba at all.  My wife and I might try to get something like this done at some point next year, I'll be sure to report our findings if we do.

[MSJ]

I have clues also. From my Last name I would assume German or somewhere close by just off that. Grandmother's Grandmother was nearly full blooded Cherokee and she has pictures, plus her square face and my nice reddish tan (i've never, ever been burned by the sun. ) as proof of that. But, besides that I have zero clue. I think doing one of those would be awesome. And, I've always had a itch to investigate my family tree, just never got around to pursuing it. I find all that very interesting.

[H]

I have clues also. From my Last name I would assume German or somewhere close by just off that. Grandmother's Grandmother was nearly full blooded Cherokee and she has pictures, plus her square face and my nice reddish tan (i've never, ever been burned by the sun. ) as proof of that. But, besides that I have zero clue. I think doing one of those would be awesome. And, I've always had a itch to investigate my family tree, just never got around to pursuing it. I find all that very interesting.

My wife is in something of the same boat.  English (as in, England) last name, her mother's maiden name is Spanish (from Spain).  They suspect some Native American decent somewhere, but it seems to be conjecture, no one really knows where along the line.  I have a feeling that if they make a map of her DNA ancestry it is literally going to be the globe though, haha.

[Wilshire]

My wife and I had genome testing done, part of that included ancestry stuff. Results were really interesting.

Interesting because my dad did some genealogy a few years back. Traced his family line back to the civil war before he lost track (sure, log into ancestery.com and you can see that someone has traced any family tree back through the time of Moses, but without any degree of accuracy) . Anyway, that means, basically, that I am American. There is no recorded history of my family's immigration to the united states for any of my 4 grandparents, because it happened to damn long ago and whoever they were weren't rich enough to have their names recorded somewhere.

On the other hand, my wife's grandfather immigrated from Italy, we we're talking 2nd generation immigrant right? (or is that third? whatever, you get it).

Results? I'm >60% Irish. The rest is German (like 20%), and  "unspecified northern European" - because some genetic markers are less descriptive than others. Also, <1% native american - a verification of my grandfather's crazy stories of being 1/8th native american because of a bastard son of some person etc. etc. grandfather ramblings.

My Wife, <25% Italian. She was so pissed . The rest was mostly unspecified southern Eropean, but also an appreciable amount ashkenazi jew - totally a surprise.


To me, this goes to show you how irrelevant your 'ancestry' is, and how unrelated it is to nationalism. Genes don't care, and they don't make nice pretty 50/50 splits when you make a baby. If you want to identify as German or Irish or Italian or American, fine, but know that your genes more than likely don't support it. Besides, even if they did, would it  matter? People aren't dogs, we don't breed 'pure' bloodlines. Identify as you will.

[H]

My wife and I had genome testing done, part of that included ancestry stuff. Results were really interesting.

Neat, like I said, if we get it done, I'll definitely post the results here.

To me, this goes to show you how irrelevant your 'ancestry' is, and how unrelated it is to nationalism. Genes don't care, and they don't make nice pretty 50/50 splits when you make a baby. If you want to identify as German or Irish or Italian or American, fine, but know that your genes more than likely don't support it. Besides, even if they did, would it  matter? People aren't dogs, we don't breed 'pure' bloodlines. Identify as you will.

Exactly.  I mean, it's relevant in the sense that it exists, but irrelevant in the sense that it has some meaning as to who, or how, you are.  It's neat to see how fluid people's movements are/were, or how little details (like your grandfather's story about the Native American blood) quickly are relegated to myth, or trivialities.  That sort of lore is lost without this kind of testing.

Obviously the lineage sort of stuff is what we are looking at though, so I'd have to look at different companies who do that best.  We don't need to see what our kids would be like, we already know, 

[Wilshire]

The company we used, 23andme, no longer offer the full suite of health information, which is a shame.

There are a couple out there, and even 1 that allows you to upload your information from other sites (the rest force you to do the testing through them, everything is proprietary). The problem with this type of thing is that it relies on aggregating large amounts of data, and with a handful of companies doing it and keeping the information to themselves, each one only has access to a fraction of the total data. There are different gaps with different companies based on the clientele that they have attracted and the research they have done.

I might send you the names of the ones that I have some limited information on (did some research before we picked one).

[H]

Neat, there isn't any hurry though, we are pretty poor at the moment, so if we do it, it wouldn't be until next year, probably spring.

You'd think that these companies would realize that pooling resources would yield them better results.  They should find a way to aggregate the data for all their own uses, then brand based off what they'll do with the data/additional resources they'll put in.  But what do I know...