A group of one I've noted earlier how I consider myself a group of one. I guess if Carlton Coon was resurrected he could classify me as "Aryo-Dravidian-Mongoloid" or something of that mix. What the hell do I care? Race differences and ethnic groups interest me, but it is just a reflection of my interest in human evolution and history. Murray & Hernstein always said what they asserted about the average IQ of black Americans did not effect the individual black American. Now, that's not totally true, people do make assumptions based on generalizations. That is a sad fact. That being said-why should someone really care if their group is disfavored somehow? I've mentioned before-the average IQ of India is around 81. So that is the average IQ of my group, right? Or is it? I could choose to "reclassify" myself with upper class Bengalis, who might have a higher IQ. Or I could choose to reclassify myself with my family-many of whom have graduate level science degrees and so probably have a higher IQ. Or I could reclassify myself as just the group of Razib, and be done with it all. All these group differences will be a thing of the past if godless has his way anyway-we'll be a lot more diverse, and our identity will be much more under our control. [1] The problem is certain people choose to view the ethnic group or race as the central organization principle of the human race. Yeah, race matters. But for most highly educated people, I don't think it really does. You pick your sexual partners and friends more on brains and beauty than their racial physiognomy. For those who might not be as well endowed intellectually-or were raised in an environment that doesn't value thought for its own sake-race might matter more. But once the arms race in germ-line treatments gets going, a much greater portion of the human race will be hyper-intellectual geeks. [2] I also want to add that on my previous post about why I am not a Nazi, and why I want to break taboos about race differences, that I brought up the bigotry I had personally experienced with a wink and a nod. What I mean is that I know women who have to deal with assholes yelling at them everyday. I knew nerds that wouldn't stand up for themselves that would get pounded by cowboys back at my high school at least once a week. I didn't have to deal with that kind of crap, so I consider myself lucky. But, it seems today that being of a minority, and being "oppressed" exempts you from a lot of accountability, and people sympathize so much. I don't want to minimize what I've gone through, but really, I don't live in dread of a hate crime. The people around me are far more shocked when someone hurls a racial insult than I am, because to them it is so much worse than yelling, "Hey ho, you have nice big titties and I wanna do you!" I've mentioned this before, certain oppression is more objectionable. So we don't make a fuss about the semi-enslavement of women in Saudi Arabia, but we would if they were black or Indonesian (OK, the Filipinos might object to this point....). My experiences don't make me more authentic than anyone else-and there is plenty of hurt and rage to go around in his world without me piling on. I happen to come from a very privileged family in Bangladesh, and had several nannies attend to me in our family compound when I was a toddler. Now, does that make me less sympathetic? Just for good measure-I come from a long line of evil landlords. OK, I hope that allows some to look deeper than the color of my skin.... [1] One of the first things that someone might do is genetically engineer their kids to be white-a lot of people in India and the Middle East would probably want white skin so they could take advantage of "white skin privilege." Of course, a boost in the number of white people would dilute that privilege greatly.... [2] More geeks would probably reduce the stigma associated with being smart, because the super-smart kid isn't going to be beaten up regularly at school if all the other kids are super-smart and don't resent him or her. Godless comments: I wanted to make a couple of points. First, I believe that whenever possible we should invest the time to treat each person as an individual with no reference to his or her preconceived group. Sometimes, however, this is not pragmatic; witness airport security. It's for this reason that people care whether they are members of a disfavored or favored group. Also, as for "white skin privilege" - I don't really think this will be as much of an issue as Razib thinks. Females will likely be lighter, and males will likely be darker. See here. Some of the changes I envision: 1) Possible scenario of runaway sexual selection, with ultrafeminine females and ultramasculine males predominating due to their reproductive advantage (assuming basic reproductive urges aren't changed). For example, women may be engineered to have no body hair, while males may have far larger muscles and height. 2) Bootstrapping effect on intelligence. I've written about this before, but basically I envision an exponential growth in intelligence much akin to Moore's Law, in which our increased smarts allow us to design smarter people. 3) Other possibilities: reduction or elimination of need for sleep, silicon-neuron interfaces that allow telekinesis, and animal-human hybrids.