Theory: Colorblindess is an Azurite royal disease

[Schroeswald]

Hmm random thought: do dogs have trouble in discriminating colors? I seem to remember hearing that once.

If I remember a fairly reliable youtube video I watched awhile ago they can see blue, and all other colors look green, but I might be wrong.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

While I was glad to see that Rich stood by his guns - nice job there -IRL color blindedness is a disqualifying trait in some professions. I am not sure what he means by "discrimination"

I mean, I can hardly speak for Rich, but I'm guessing he probably meant the unethical kind of discrimination - like, say, the reality that in some places LGBT people are not allowed to be teachers or soldiers because of false assertions that all gay people are pedophiles or cowards or whatever the absurd "justifications" (and I use the word quite wrongly, since there is obviously no justice to such assertions) bigots come up with. This applies to plenty of other non-disqualifying characteristics, of course, such as race, gender, etc.

To the best of my knowledge, colour blindness does not generate similar levels of discrimination (although given my lack of faith in humanity, I would also not be surprised at this point if it did exist). Being disqualified from a job on the basis that lack of full colour vision could lead to an accident or error is valid, if there really is no reasonable accommodation that can be done. I'd imagine that in your dad's case, there where instrumentation designs involving red-green lights that would not work effectively with his colour blindness.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

Dogs are bichromatic, they have two types of cone cells who allow them to see yellow and blue but not red. Humans are trichromatic so from our point of view, they are red-green colorblind.

There are some evidence that some women (2-3%) are tetrachromatic and so can better distinguish red and green than most humans.

Edit: conversely there’s an island somewhere in Micronesia who has suffered from heavy inbreeding because a typhoon killed most of the population back in the 18th century and, as a result, around a third of the local population can’t see color at all.

[Peelee]

While I was glad to see that Rich stood by his guns - nice job there -IRL color blindedness is a disqualifying trait in some professions.

Yes? Other circumstances that are otherwise protected against discrimination are similarly disqualifying in some professions - the easiest being that if someone is blind, they won't be allowed to fly a plane. The point is that these are objectively reasonable disqualifiers and are not based on discrimination.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd imagine that in your dad's case, there where instrumentation designs involving red-green lights that would not work effectively with his colour blindness.

Grey Wolf

Yep, likewise with driving ships at sea and aircraft at night. Red and green running lights, and such ... and signal flags ...

[Quizatzhaderac]

If I remember a fairly reliable youtube video .........

No such thing. In fact, Youtube is required by law to only include fictional content. It says so right in the part of the Magna Carta that Abraham Lincoln wrote.

[MartytheBioGuy]

No such thing. In fact, Youtube is required by law to only include fictional content. It says so right in the part of the Magna Carta that Abraham Lincoln wrote.

He's right, I heard about that in a video on... Oh no...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Youtube is required by law to only include fictional content. It says so right in the part of the Magna Carta that Abraham Lincoln wrote.

Oh, if only I had space in my sig for this.

GW

[137beth]

No such thing. In fact, Youtube is required by law to only include fictional content. It says so right in the part of the Magna Carta that Abraham Lincoln wrote.

I'm sorry, but this is wrong. The Code of Hammurabi clearly states

If anyone uploads a Youtube video which is not completely true and accurate, it shall be taken down and the uploader's family shall be put to death.

Since no one is dumb enough to risk death just to upload a fictional video, everything on Youtube must be true.

[ijuinkun]

Dogs are bichromatic, they have two types of cone cells who allow them to see yellow and blue but not red. Humans are trichromatic so from our point of view, they are red-green colorblind.

Not just dogs. Nearly all non-primate mammals are bichromatic, though some have red and blue as their cone types instead of yellow and blue. Generally, though, most mammals can not distinguish green as anything other than an intermediary mix between their two existing colors.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Great theory, but you have one problem. Here, i'll fix it for you:

There, that's much more realistic.

Blue has, historically, been one of the more expensive colors to dye. Reds, greens, or browns would be more cost-effective than blues.

We also have no reason to assume that people make children via sexual intercourse in OOTS rather than, say, by having one partner carry the other on their shoulders while sining row, row, row your boat backwards, yet I will assume that unless given a reason not to.

We have seen what is heavily implied to be sexual intercourse either starting or being interrupted on multiple occasions, but we have never heard someone sing Boat, boat, boat your row.

The reason should be obvious: it invalidates the theory of the thread, but has no solid base on which to do so.

1. I'd say real-life science is a decent base. After all, fictional worlds are generally like reality unless otherwise noted.
2. What's so important about not invalidating the theory of the thread? The whole point of theories is to see whether or not they can be invalidated!

The area around Azure city is/was home to the world's largest azurite mine (the mineral, not the people)

Well, the people too. But they don't like it when you say they're yours.

I like the headcanon.

We do know that natural selection and thus evolution are not currently in effect, though they might be applicable to the current system if it goes long enough. But the gods might also have to 'patch' that in somehow.

Natural selection isn't in effect because the worlds don't last more than a couple hundred human generations. That's plenty of time for lizards to evolve new gut structures or mosquitoes to evolve reproductive barriers, but I'm pretty sure only the God of Biology Nerds cares about that. You need millions of years for changes that laymen (or laygods*) would notice or care about.

Assuming that there is heritable variability that affects inclusive fitness, there will be natural selection. It is a natural consequence of those things (and also reproduction, but we know that exists).

...Sorry, I studied this in college. And beforehand, less rigorously.

*"Laygods" is an inherently absurd term that I will now try to find more excuses to use.

[RatElemental]

Assuming that there is heritable variability that affects inclusive fitness, there will be natural selection. It is a natural consequence of those things (and also reproduction, but we know that exists).

This is true, you're right. Doesn't have to be genes even.

So maybe color blindness is just a heritable trait that either parent can pass on, like a template. Or maybe it's more like blue, purple and turqoise hair.

While it is likely that genetics works more or less the same, there's clearly some difference between the genes our populations have to work with. There's no reason for colorblindness to be exclusively matrilineal .

[Wizard_Lizard]

I'm sorry, but this is wrong. The Code of Hammurabi clearly states

Since no one is dumb enough to risk death just to upload a fictional video, everything on Youtube must be true.

Especially the stuff that is self contradicting. All of that MUST be correct.

[Sigako]

Wasn't the whole Azure City intended as a jab/homage to Emerald City?

[Vinyadan]

Yep, likewise with driving ships at sea and aircraft at night. Red and green running lights, and such ... and signal flags ...

Which signals a problem: colourblind people are happily ignored when it comes to choosing the colours of traffic lights and many other signals that should be immediately perceivable (although the American(?) standard of using yellow and black for danger is a nice thing). Or even silly things like HP bars in videogames.

[Quizatzhaderac]

So I found a color blindness simulator. And put 302 in the red blind option. (302 is one of the scenes with the most non-blue)

Hinjo becomes the clearly best dressed person. Elan's green accents look terrible. The grass and the lanterns can't be blue (blue flames burn quite hot and require special fuel). The Dragon and monkey puppets could have been died blue, expect the actual things aren't blue (yes, there a blue dragons, but Dragon is green).

[RatElemental]

The grass and the lanterns can't be blue (blue flames burn quite hot and require special fuel).

The rest of that post is really interesting, but I'm pretty sure those are small flames inside of colored paper lanterns, they aren't translating the actual color of the fire. They very easily could have been blue, or green or whatever other colors they wanted them to be.

[Vinyadan]

So I found a color blindness simulator. And put 302 in the red blind option. (302 is one of the scenes with the most non-blue)

Hinjo becomes the clearly best dressed person. Elan's green accents look terrible. The grass and the lanterns can't be blue (blue flames burn quite hot and require special fuel). The Dragon and monkey puppets could have been died blue, expect the actual things aren't blue (yes, there a blue dragons, but Dragon is green).

https://youtu.be/8sAF0WdzVZQ?t=23

[Wizard_Lizard]

So I found a color blindness simulator. And put 302 in the red blind option. (302 is one of the scenes with the most non-blue)

Hinjo becomes the clearly best dressed person. Elan's green accents look terrible. The grass and the lanterns can't be blue (blue flames burn quite hot and require special fuel). The Dragon and monkey puppets could have been died blue, expect the actual things aren't blue (yes, there a blue dragons, but Dragon is green).

Wow that's actually really interesting.

[Peelee]

So I found a color blindness simulator. And put 302 in the red blind option. (302 is one of the scenes with the most non-blue)

Spoiler: How I looked as I clicked the link and didn't see much difference and then realized that was because I'm already colorblind

Show

[137beth]

I didn't know dragons could be colorblind!

[Peelee]

I didn't know dragons could be colorblind!

I'm not saying that grey is my favorite color because I'm colorblind... but it does make for some good jokes.

[Quizatzhaderac]

The rest of that post is really interesting, but I'm pretty sure those are small flames inside of colored paper lanterns, they aren't translating the actual color of the fire.

I realize there are colored screens, but screens don't work like that. They can only block light, not alter it. A blue screen on any sensible flame wouldn't let much/any light through.

https://youtu.be/8sAF0WdzVZQ?t=23

I don't have time to watch te whole thing, but please tell me there's a callback joke where it turns out Nameks really do listen to R&B.

[Gurgeh]

Blue paper lanterns exist in our world. And work, quite happily, with ordinary candles or incandescent bulbs inside them. A flame doesn't have to appear blue in order to contain blue light - black-body radiation is a continuum across the EM spectrum, and the colour that we see is essentially an "average" of all the different wavelengths of light being emitted. (there are other mechanisms for light to be emitted, usually due to electrons getting excited and emitting excess energy as photons - this is, broadly, what's responsible for the blue light you can see in the lower, cooler, part of a candle flame, for instance) but these tend to be rare in hydrocarbon combustion; generally you're only likely to see a strong chemical influence on flame colour if you're burning metals, which isn't really sustainable as a medium-term light source.

A candle flame isn't especially hot, so its black-body output is biased fairly heavily towards the lower end of the visible spectrum, but it does still emit some amount of blue light; if you put a blue shade over it then the result might not be quite as spectacular as what you'd get from a red or yellow or green one, but it will absolutely still show some light.

[Murk]

The area around Azure city is/was home to the world's largest azurite mine (the mineral, not the people) , as well cobalt mines (used to make arch-typical Chinese porcelain ), and good spots for indigo farming. The azure mine formed a major components of the city's trade when it formed, thus naming the city/people after the rock.

I dig this, but I'm going to say you have the causality backwards: blue isn't being used everywhere because the nobility is colourblind - the nobility is colourblind because blue is used everywhere.

Since the colour blue is such a major aspect of the region's economy and industry since ancient times, not being able to distinguish red and green is not much of a liability (everything is blue or grey any way).
Even more, it's beneficial: those ancient Azurites who were red-green colourblind turned out to be much better at distinguishing the different shades of blue, giving them an advantage in the early blue dye industry.
Logically, this put them in a much better position to become leaders, chiefs and later nobility.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Blue paper lanterns exist in our world. And work, quite happily, with ordinary candles or incandescent bulbs inside them.

My original point was that there was a good reason not to choose blue.

I haven't been able to find any images a blue paper lanterns lit by a candle. I've found ones with with incandescent bulbs, but aren't that great, and incandescent bulbs have a much higher temperature /overall brightness.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

My original point was that there was a good reason not to choose blue.

I haven't been able to find any images a blue paper lanterns lit by a candle. I've found ones with with incandescent bulbs, but aren't that great, and incandescent bulbs have a much higher temperature /overall brightness.

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/c...epeng-festival

I can't prove that it's a candle and not a bulb, but the description says candle, and the reality is that traditional floats (of the kind seen in Disney's Tangled) are both made with a candle, and with any colour paper you want, so I can easily imagine blue ones.

GW

[Vinyadan]

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/c...epeng-festival

I can't prove that it's a candle and not a bulb, but the description says candle, and the reality is that traditional floats (of the kind seen in Disney's Tangled) are both made with a candle, and with any colour paper you want, so I can easily imagine blue ones.

GW

Am I the only one who gets a popup about cookies that says Skimlinks and forums.giantitp.com monetise them when I click on this link? I don't think it's true, but I'd like to know if it's my machine or the link.

[Goblin_Priest]

Random thoughts

Color blindness being recessive may not change a whole lot. Many noble classes are known to inbreed. Especially royalty. It'd be possible that a very large part of the royal class have it.

Doing everything one color can make manufacturing simpler. However, if the materials needed to make the dye aren't overly abundant, then increasing demand dramatically for that color can create a shortage of dye, which in turn brings prices up.

OotS-verse has many custom diseases or otherwise fantastical diseases. Color-blindeness could come from different sources than it does in RL. Could be a heriditary curse, even, magical in nature.

While I was glad to see that Rich stood by his guns - nice job there -IRL color blindedness is a disqualifying trait in some professions. I am not sure what he means by "discrimination" but I'll offer two examples: my dad tried to join the Marines (near the end of WW II) and he was disqualified due to red green color blind. The Army took him, he ended up in the signal corps doing morse code. Might be why I exist, when I think about it ...
Multiple candidates/hopefuls for military flight training (to include one of my college room mates) are shown the door and advised to pursue other careers since red green color blindness is a disqualifying feature.

[and other following comments]

Society is made around the capacity to distinguish these colors. A red-green "blind" person can function very well in society, but often there are situations that are the equivalent of a place only having steps, and no ramps, denying access to people in wheelchairs. Yet there are ramps is just about every institutional and commercial setting, without any accommodations for color-blindness, despite color-blindness being considerably more prevalent than wheelchairs. The impact is pretty much always lesser, though. Still, it can manifest in being unable to understand signage, for example. Traffic lights can be tricky, which results in safety hazards. Color-coded maps are often bad offenders, where it's impossible to interpret the color-coded data.

So overall, it's "reduced opportunity and capacity due to social institutions for factors out of the person's control", which is on par with other forms of discrimination being criticized, if you want to make it a matter of principle. And telling people of your "disability" /does/ influence how they interact with you, as well as influence life opportunities, because a lot of people who would have otherwise never guessed, if made aware, will simply not rely on you anymore, even for a myriad of tasks you could very well accomplish. And that's without mentioning the nagging, derision, "colorsplaining", quizzing, etc.