| Author | Message | ||
     Aesquire |
Hoot, Nature vs. Nurture? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wjkdynBFHuQ Want to bet?  My opinion is that sexuality, like most human traits, intelligence, build, etc. is nearly always plotted on a Bell Curve. Some things, like height, are both genetic and environmental. Highly dependent on diet from fertilization through adolescence. The first 9 months after sperm meets egg are critical, as are from birth to????? Btw the book The Bell Curve is quite interesting, and the source of much rage. Not sure I'd suggest paying for it, it's a bit dry and tedious. But worth reading more than one review to get multiple opinions on it. I tell my gay friends what I'll tell you. I don't know if there is a gay gene, or if it's lack of Father Figure, or abuse, or some combination. I've known lesbians who were sexually assaulted, had messed up home lives, mothers divorced father while kid is baby and talked ill of him for 20 years. And then there's Barry, with a crazy mom who made the absent Father a figure of unrealistic expectations, a paragon of revolutionary hero. And a major mind f$%& for the kid when he finally found a drunk polygamist piece of crap. I also point out that the fringe activist folk are balkanizing sex. Dividing people into groups to hate one another. It's not enough to preach tolerance. Not good enough to demand equal rights. The hidden agenda folk demand superiority. The best you can ask for in this fallen world is demand respect, and refuse to accept less, in a constant struggle against ignorant and mean people. You won't always get it, and have to pick and choose your battles. That applies to sexuality, nerd enthusiasm, and racial discrimination. In fact, everyone. | ||
| Hootowl |
I don’t buy it, Pat. Sexual desire is fixed. That’s why curing pedophilia by therapy never ever works, and why the pray away the gay camps are similarly useless. Homosexuality is either a mental disorder or it’s genetic. I don’t believe it’s a mental disorder. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I don't call it a disorder either. What's your favorite color? Do you like blondes, brunettes, or gingers? (the Ginger/Maryanne debate) Favorite food? Or, more broadly, spicy food or sweet? These, to a degree, are technically "choices"...but they are hard to change. Speaking from personal experience with my head injuries in 2008, including my frontal lobe...your brain does things and because of those things you simply....are. https://www.verywellhealth.com/the-frontal-lobes-2 488715 Other than task-orientation, the frontal lobes control neat little things like personality, emotion, impulse control...and until you bash one of yours in and have to live with the changes that come from synapse-rerouting, you have NO idea how much you're at the mercy of your own brain. I didn't Jekyl-and-Hyde...not quite...but I CERTAINLY became a different person. Not black and white...but more like my own identical twin. Similar at a casual level, but look deeper....and there's differences. Notable ones. And, they're things that, no matter how hard I tried in the first few years...I could not change. Impulse control in the form of verbal filters. Emotional control in the form of ...well...it's like menopause, there are no small emotions anymore. Short term memory - I used to remember conversations that I heard from across a room, for years. Now, I can make a concerted effort to remember a conversation I'm a part of...and three minutes later, details are already vanishing. We - as a species - truly do NOT have control over our brains. Quite the opposite - they run the show, and our bodies are literally along for the ride. It's like Men In Black - "hey, the little dude inside the big dude's head said..." Closer to the truth than you know. | ||
| Ourdee |
Closer to the truth than you know. I know. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I think the word you are looking for is "predilection". Somewhere something flips the jumper switches of preference. Like the monkey pushing the button to get a treat, certain inputs provide pleasurable outputs and the brain craves the pleasure. Unless you can prove a 100% correlation of X gene to Y behavior or predilection, the argument resides squarely in junk science and social engineering. | ||
| Court |
I've got a pretty healthy collection of gay friends who had perfectly normal childhoods . . . are great folks and great friends. Frankly . . . I could care less about sexuality, gender preference, race, creed or the entire litany of stuff as long as the character is good and folks don't try foisting upon me how I should believe. I respect diversity AND that folks have diverse opinions of diversity . . . why, there's that Bell Curve again. | ||
| Aesquire |
You do have valid points. I'm not at all defending one position here. Rat... Gingers. But Maryanne. And Betty. Velma. Kim Possible? Have to think to recall other cartoon preferences.  | ||
| Hootowl |
“Unless you can prove a 100% correlation of X gene to Y behavior or predilection, the argument resides squarely in junk science and social engineering“ I made no mention of behavior. | ||
| Hootowl |
“Unless you can prove a 100% correlation of X gene to Y behavior or predilection, the argument resides squarely in junk science and social engineering“ I made no mention of behavior. Desire is not an action. If you think genetics is junk science, and that genes do not affect nearly every aspect of our physical being, you haven’t been paying attention. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/homosexual ity-may-be-caused-chemical-modifications-dna So while they haven’t found a ‘gay gene’ it sure seems like manipulating them has a result. Hardly junk science. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I think we're all in agreement here, although reaching our end result through different avenues. Gay/straight/red/brown/blonde/sweet/spicy...not choices, but predispositions. (based on....? THAT is the question at hand - if we're going/able to discover the cause, and if we do will we try to modify them to fit our needs?). And, beyond the predispositions...what actions do we / don't we take based on those predispositions. THOSE are the choice. THOSE are the judgeable items - not the predisposition, but how one acts on them. Frankly . . . I could care less about sexuality, gender preference, race, creed or the entire litany of stuff as long as the character is good and folks don't try foisting upon me how I should believe.  | ||
| Mnscrounger |
"And Betty. Velma. Kim Possible? Have to think to recall other cartoon preferences" | ||
| Ratbuell |
I dunno....gingers are fun to play with, but having been married to one (past tense)...don't sign any long-term agreements. Just sayin'. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Hoot, the "you" was aggregate and not pointed at you specifically. My concern is the rampant existence of junk science as represented by twisted and errant statistics. To state "we have definitively identified the "gay gene"" without any statistical support seems dubious at best. If there is a gay gene, wouldn't we find it with certainty in every gay male and absent in every straight male? If not, is it really the predominant force in the determination of sexual orientation? If it is merely a contributing factor, how much of a factor. Are there other genetic markers with an equal or greater correlation with sexual preference? Or, is there, as I believe may be true, a tenuous correlation which has been used to create certainty where none exists. Is this the "global warming" of genetic science? I care not what sexual orientation a person has. I have friends and family on both sides of the "fence". It's irrelevant. That said, unsubstantiated scientific claims can and often are utilized to justify greater social, economic and environmental engineering. | ||
| Hootowl |
To state "we have definitively identified the "gay gene"" without any statistical support seems dubious at best. I don’t recall anyone, especially me, saying that the gay gene has been found. In fact, I think the opposite was claimed: It hasn’t been found. | ||
| Aesquire |
What is interesting/terrifying is the possibility of a "gay spray". The following is pure speculation and most aspects are probably not how things work. If you can alter future behavior with biological "things" that are not DNA, then how & when you are exposed & method of delivery makes a difference in weapon uses and psych war. If only inherited, or you get exposed in the womb, then threatening, say, Iran, with "making all your sons gay and your nation will die out", you have a terror weapon that can lead to suicidal homicide behavior. Serious backfire potential. If you can toss a "gay grenade" into a room, and then within, say, a month the exposed suddenly get desires? As they say in Hollywood, hilarity ensues. Doesn't do you a lot of good when it comes to clearing a building, but it's a great future military joke source. This is probably best thought of as a fake weapon used to threaten an enemy before actual hostilities to prevent them attacking you. If it were today, I'd have some untrustworthy Obama appointee in the White House or CIA allowed to see a fake document about the sex weapon, knowing they'd leak it to harm Trump & America. Trump would immediately twit that is was all fake. CNN would have it headline news 24/7. Then, say, Portugal would think twice about attacking us. ( Nobody thinks of poor Portugal, so I thought I'd mention them. ) However the Chinese would begin a crash program to counter the weapon, and probably, in the process, come up with a real version. Then in the movie, it would escape from the lab, and it would be chaos! But very nicely decorated chaos, with exquisite taste. | ||
| Hootowl |
The ability to turn folks gay and back again is a plot element in the forever war. | ||
| Airbozo |
"Have to think to recall other cartoon preferences." Druuna  | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Hoot, YOU may not have, but others have most definitely. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/its_a lready_here_jewhatred_now_normal_and_unworthy_of_n otice_in_many_segments_of_society.html The Forever War is one of the Great novels of the late 20th century. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/03/01/candace- owens-at-cpac-the-democrats-are-the-party-of-slave ry-jim-crow-kkk/ I really like this lady. | ||
| Whisperstealth |
Candace Owens is awesome. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/01/mike -pence-freedom-not-socialism-ended-slavery-won-two -world-wars/ Airbozo, I was a big Heavy Metal magazine fan once upon a Den. I was trying to keep mainstream. And comics have... https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostCo mmonSuperpower This trope is invoked, even abused, by https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/Gr rlPower http://grrlpowercomic.com Where "supers" for reasons no one knows, are all built like Greek Gods with no body hair and "most common super power" builds. It's a running gag. The main character is Not a "super" but has "artifact powers". The artist loves shower scenes. In the Wearing The Cape novels, this trope is well known, and heroes wear padding, use personal trainers, etc. The main character is 5'3" tall, with, as she puts it, the figure of an underdeveloped Tinker Bell. A lot of humor is milked from the fact that while some guy who looks like The Hulk can stop a fight just by scaring bad guys, ( and one of her team does just that, looking like the kind of monster that can beat up Superman ) she, looking like a kid sister, just can't intimidate anyone. And actually has to fight MORE than the Big Guys. As she is strong & tough enough to take on a main battle tank and win, and trains, hard, in martial arts, she is deceptively bad a$$. ( killed a Godzilla, and occasionally has to be told that she's on fire ) | ||
| Aesquire |
That may be my favorite Red Dwarf clip. | ||
| Mnscrounger |
Aesquire: It IS my favorite. Running a close second is the Cat coming out of the bushes in "Backwards". | ||
| Aesquire |
"Today's special is trout almondine" And he is right. Wilma would never leave Fred. | ||
| Mnscrounger |
"This is mine... this is mine... this is mine too..." "Cat" is one of the best comic characters ever, followed closely by Kryten. "I was only out of the room for three minutes" Incidentally: early 2019 series 13 will begin filming. I need to get the box set to catch up. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/h ow_socialism_fails_in_theory.html | ||
| Ratbuell |
I had a college roommate who was big on Socialism (especially when he was in his whisky). I'd let him rant - sometimes for hours - and I'd have educated and respectful arguments with him, but every time, when I grew weary of the back-and-forth (or I just had something I needed to do), I'd shut him down with one sentence: "yea, but...everybody always wants more stuff". It is our nature as humans to want more stuff - to show off, to be comfortable, to make life easier, whatever the reason...we want...STUFF. So, we work for it. That effort puts value on it, for us, and for anyone else who wants that same item. I was thinking about the GND yesterday as I used my snowblower to carve my driveway back out of drifted snow. Eventually...if the GND ever came to fruition...I could easily see "money" go away. We wouldn't produce/work for dollars - oh, no, that opens too many doors for people to get big heads, and to try and look "better" than other Workers. I see no reason they would not change our entire structure to working for "food credits", in order to keep the Workers under control and away from dangerous things like personal posessions, nice homes, and vacations (or the coveting thereof). And it would serve the dual purpose of hiding the whole "how are you going to pay for it" issue. If there is no money...there are no "costs" to be discussed. One glance at AOC's "we'll just print more money" answer tells me how much she knows about monetary systems, and how willingly she'd endorse something like this if it ever came up. | ||
| Ourdee |
Explain to everyone the type of cell phone they will have under GND. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Solar powered? Maybe wind? Or, given their abandonment of the Industrial Revolution in general...possibly a step back to 2 tin cans with a string? |
