What Shapes People? Nature or Nurture

In Kenya we like stereotypes as a means to cope with our diversity. You’ll hear that Kikuyus are entreprenurial or are crooks. You’ll here that the Luo are intelligent or are vain. You’ll here that coastarians are easy going of are lazy. And so on and so forth.

from this there seems to be a determinism being arrived at. This is the basis of nurture, that our inherent backgrounds define us. That you’re behavior or your fate is bound by your genetic background. But if you agree to this won’t you accept that Africans are by nature slow minded, lazy and other bad adjectives used to describe us?

Also this idea just doesn’t seem right given these examples: In Europe they say that Southerners are lazier than Notherners but it is those from the South who had the old empires like Greece, etc. It is the South like Spain who started the age of ocean exploration. So what changed?
They said that the Japanese, the Chinese had inherent attributes that make them fall behind Europe but look today, Japan is as good as any Western European country. China is the most important or 2nd most important country.

Then you have North Korea and South Korea. These are the same people but look at their fate!

What I’m I getting at? I think that our environment is more important at shaping us. I think we, collectively, react to our environment rather than that there is inherent advantages and disadvantages to being from this ethnicity or that tribe. Otherwise, why would well off kids almost always do better than worse off kids no matter the tribe or race?

I wanted to hear the views of some of the smart people of KTalk on this. Do you think we give so much importance on your background (in terms of tribe or whatever)? My opinion is that we should judge people individually and judge groups by the environment or circumstances around their history. For example a smart girl in UON is going to have a harder time than an equally smart girl in Silicon Valley.
What do you guys think?
Let’s start having smart conversations

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This topic is not debatable, both shape people.

I understand but which plays a precedent role?

The default settings are Nurture. We tend to carry the values that we were brought up with.

People’s opinions may differ on this but I think nurture plays a bigger role. All life experiences, no matter how small, affect who we are and how we act because of the environment we grow up in and live in and the interactions we have throughout our lifespan

A rare picture of @girlciki93
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the enviroment plays a big role to nature people, i.e in africa its warmer with nice tropical weather hence lazier pple since time immemorial, and the more northerly on earths latitude you go its more temperate and colder hence the human adapts and starts using the brain to survive hence evolution of technology. Thats my take @girlciki93 .

THIS PIECE OF EVIDENCE HAS BEEN REJECTED…

Tumelewa.tuwache

That doesn’t work though, Singapore is as ordely as Japan and it’s in the tropics. So what gives? And I do not consider myself lazy

ama aweke zile thread za malaya ati 10 rule of slay queens

i just watched a docu about the polar bear on NATGEOwild and one of the things i’ve noted is how hard it has to work to ensure it survives the long harsh winter. it has to eat enough to build (store) body fat to 'eat" during winter. it has also developed certain characteristics that help with survival such as lowering metabolism and not passing waste during the winter.
in the same environment, the russian in siberia has to find enough fuel to warm his home and food to keep him going when the earth is not productive during winter ; something his counterpart in the tropics doesn’t have to do. how hard one works therefore is a matter borne of environmental necessity.
this may explain why southern europeans had time for adventure; though again the Norse tribes such as the Vikings were earlier seafarers than the south europeans. pre-industrial revolution adventurism was more like a quest for survival rather than prosperity resourves…
the environment shapes the man.

If you have two identical twins with exact genetic profiles, you raise one of them in America and the other one in Somalia they will be very different individuals. Having resources to cater for a person’s needs can alter their destiny far more than having good genes. Some people have lineages with terrible diseases in their blood line, but access to excellent medical care allows them to live a normal life.

that again doesn’t add up at all. The tropics are the hardest place to live. There is no disease like here and pests that make it difficult to keep livestock and then the land does not support large scale grain cultivation before mechanization came up then there is the Sahara desert that effectively locks you away from the rest of the World.

Hardship doesn’t bring innovation, it brings a survivalist mentality like the San people and their hunts in the Kalahari regions. Or any poor person today.
You see Northern Europe had coal for industrialization, they had lots of easily accessible timber for industrialization. It’s not really about hardship. It’s a combination of factors.

Also the superior animal,the human did not come from the Arctic but from the tropics, the Savannah.

I think your environment view is way to reductionist. The cold is simply there, it’s not a differentiation and it’s not more difficult than malaria for example

Exactly, so there’s no basis to stereotype of tribes or races at the end of the day. If you are wealthy (background) you can afford to make mistakes more than a poor person.

I think the San people are generally comfortable in their environment. if poverty is to experience need without the wherewithal to meet that need, then the San are not poor. we innovate to create more efficient means of production.

haha I mean yeah you can say they are not poor but they live on the margin (death by hunger, wild animal, simple ailment). I think that’s poverty but that’s a whole new discussion. Poverty is an issue of material well being.

Why do you think that their innovations (maybe new poison for arrow) don’t bring drastic change? That’s why I say it’s an issue if nature because they can only do so much with what they’ve got

it’s is impossible to judge people individually. People naturally grow up having preconceived bias over other people form different groups.
You will hear even older people repeated saying how some communities are these and that.
Material wealth also contribute to bias, a community which has been historical marginalized will also feel angered by those who benefited economical, religious or any other form.

you are measuring their needs by alien (western) standards. if they were in such acute need how have they survived to date?

they are comfortable. they are a rudimentary society without needs beyond nurturing their young to carry their genes to the next generation. they have adapted to their environment. They will need to buy guns when they can no longer kill their food game (need) or if lions develop a taste for their flesh (threat)…

To quote Lloyd Thomas in Money, Banking and Finance…" Such an extremely rudimentary society can get by nicely without the use of money, so money did not exist in the early centuries of Aboriginal Australia [which was more or less like the San Kalahari]"

Africa life was disrupted by the needs/greed of others.