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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5112751" data-attributes="member: 4937">To refute one of the subtexts of the blogger's essay, which is that I'm morally required to believe that races and species are identical and that the suggestion that they are not is indicative of some defect in my judgment.In other words, I try to show that the blogger falsely conflates the idea that we can describe a distinguishing feature of a group with the idea that there would be no variation within the group.  The blogger starts talking about one thing, but then slips into the other as if he hasn't made a transition.He asserts:"The rule books of many dead tree RPGs read like works of Victorian anthropology, full of stony-faced assurances that individuals from one race are more intelligent or muscular than individuals from another."He's conflating the idea that the race of elves might have +2 dexterity with having a racist viewpoint.  Indeed, we could go further.  By saying that in those terms, he's implicitly saying that if you design your games where some race is more intelligent or muscular than individuals from another, you are running some racial supremist inspired meme.Of course, this assertion that my assertion that one race is more muscular than another is akin to the stony-faced assurance of a Victorian anthropologist gets really silly when the invented race in question weighs on average 2000 lbs and is built like an ox.  And the idea that in inventing such a race I'm unavoidably trying to say something about present human race relations or past or present human theories of race is equally specious.</blockquote>

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