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On Geeks and Gays

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Re: On Geeks and Gays

#61

Post by dejb »

mpk wrote: post #11

I'd say that geeks tend to think about their environment a lot more than other people because geeks tend to think about systems in general. I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia. Gay people seem to me to be just as likely to be virtuous or decadent as straight people. Discriminating against people for having a different sexual orientation seems totally irrational to me. As far as I'm concerned,…

> I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia.

From parents and close relatives it is easy to see a evolutionary reason. However from unrelated males (more common) it would seem that they would have every reason to encourage homosexuality in other males. Maybe it comes from when most people who lived together were related.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#62

Post by tman »

petercooper wrote: post #46
tman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I reply, I'd like to find out what you mean by that statement. Do you mean, "Let us be willfully blind and refuse to engage our senses, not recognizing any differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals despite large behavioral differences (beyond sexual preference) which do exist." Or do you mean, "Despite your arguments, I categorically state that no differences between these groups exist (beyond the sexu…

Sure, there are certain differences in the median characteristics of different demographic groups. The median teenager is a less safe driver than the median 30-something (as reflected in insurance costs). The median man is, likely, more promiscuous than the median woman. And so on. Nonetheless, it's a tenet of polite, modern society that slight demographic variations are not turned into generalizations over entire de…

I've never seen someone straightforward enough to say that they'd rather be polite than logical.

I think that sufficiently sharpens the contradictions.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#63

Post by caryme »

tsally wrote: post #54

A thought: Alan Turing died when he was 41. Anything Turing would have invented between 41 and his natural death are things lost to society because of the persecution of homosexuals. What an incredible cost.

Although I agree with you that Turing's death was an incredible loss, I wouldn't be so sure he would have died a natural death.

Turing had considered suicide before, during his failed work on the Riemann hypothesis. At that time, he schemed up a suicide mechanism involving an apple and electrical wiring which he described in a letter to an old boyfriend.

Turing was pretty eccentric, romanticized suicide (and was a little obsessed with this apple idea), and was in and out of depression.

Mind you, I agree. I'm just not so sure Turing ever would have died naturally.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#64

Post by tman »

cj wrote: post #57
tman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I reply, I'd like to find out what you mean by that statement. Do you mean, "Let us be willfully blind and refuse to engage our senses, not recognizing any differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals despite large behavioral differences (beyond sexual preference) which do exist." Or do you mean, "Despite your arguments, I categorically state that no differences between these groups exist (beyond the sexu…

You'd be surprised at the number of straight-acting gay men that you interact with everyday. You're basing your judgments on the flamboyant feminine gay men, the ones who you know are definitely gay. That's a very biased sampling to base your judgments on.

What? I think you meant to reply to someone else. Re-read my posts and find any statement where I suggested any behavioral differences and backed it up by anecdotal evidence.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#65

Post by drunkpotato »

bootload wrote: post #2

"... When I was a teenager at school I definitely did not fit in. I had glasses, was awkward, brainy, wore the school uniform because I had no idea what else to wear, and suffered insults from my classmates. One of these was the frequent and common slander “poof” (which is probably the closest thing to the American term “fag”). I was either ignored, or verbally abused, or physically assaulted. In one attack two boys…

This is something I have an interest in, but from a different perspective. I wasn't bullied. I was smart, fat, unapologetically nerdy, and never paid a social price (I had friends, girlfriends in high school, and was not socially maladjusted other than a stubborn anti-authority streak that remains with me). Seemingly I also had higher confidence and was more physically oriented than many geeks I have met later in life.

I'm wondering what the differences were. I know one is that I went to high school in a highly educated town where geeks and jocks were nearly equally respected. That can't be the whole story, however, because I also had some friends who happened to be the less socially able geeks, and I experienced a similar degree of friendship and acceptance in junior high, which was in a decidedly less intellectual-friendly city.

I'm sorry if I seem to be going on, but I want to provide a counterpoint to the picked-on geek, and I'm curious why the bullied geek is such a common stereotype (seems to be a true stereotype; I don't argue otherwise).

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#66

Post by astine »

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #47
dzorz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devils advocate: a child raised by the gay couple might be stigmatized by its peers, so in the best interest of the child it might be better for the child to be raised in traditional nuclear family. If you look at it that way it is also a chicken and egg problem.

By that logic, we shouldn't allow ugly couples to adopt either. WAY too stigmatizing. :-)

I'd actually like to see the statistics on acceptance rates of ugly couple vs good looking one. I'll bet they're pretty damning.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#67

Post by smallblacksun »

caryme wrote: post #41
j-g-faustus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought that [gay | labor | women's | black's | etc] rights all collapse to merely human rights, and find it curious that we see the need to carve it up in a whole bunch of special cases.

That's just the thing. If we could realize that it's the same issue over and over again, perhaps it would become less of an issue. If only. In US-parlance, all men are created equal. We said that right off the bat. Once we decided that by men , we meant people , what further argument is there to have? All means all.

Murderers and pedophiles are okay then? No? So all doesn't mean all, but some subset of all.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#68

Post by sliverstorm »

lallysingh wrote: post #32
sliverstorm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never was convinced single parent adoption was a good idea.

1 parent is still better than 0.

I'm thinking mostly from the POV of if we had more adopting families than orphans, which I know isn't actually the case.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#69

Post by jonpaul »

Kudos to this guy. It's sad that many people in society are myopic and think that this guy was gay. As stated, I think it's simply a case of one geek that was persecuted standing up for a fellow geek. The world needs more people like this guy.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#70

Post by caryme »

smallblacksun wrote: post #67
caryme wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the thing. If we could realize that it's the same issue over and over again, perhaps it would become less of an issue. If only. In US-parlance, all men are created equal. We said that right off the bat. Once we decided that by men , we meant people , what further argument is there to have? All means all.

Murderers and pedophiles are okay then? No? So all doesn't mean all, but some subset of all.

Saying that all people are created equally does not mean that all people are free from error or consequence.
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