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On Geeks and Gays

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Re: On Geeks and Gays

#201

Post by jimbokun »

joubert wrote: post #177
MartinCron wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Being theist or atheist is not a moral issue, it's a philosophical issue about the nature of the universe. The notion that atheists are less moral than theists is a common misconception.

I would argue it is more moral to be atheistic than to believe in some god.

And a theist would argue that being theistic is more moral. This devolves simply to the question of whether theism or atheism is correct, so the question of the morality of either position is largely beside the point.

EDIT: Hacker News is not allowing me to reply to you, so I'll ask my question here: If a group of atheist people shared a set of contradictory beliefs, requiring vile and immoral actions, would that make atheism immoral?

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#202

Post by CWuestefeld »

caryme wrote: post #34

As a gay geek, I found myself drawn to Turing's story - a tragic story of (probably) unrequited love as a schoolboy, a heroic story of a great thinker and war hero, and a heart-wrenching story of humiliating rejection by the same country he served. I'm surprised JGC was assumed to be gay for standing up for Alan Turing, but proud that he handled the assumptions well. From our perspective, Turing's story is so much bi…

Likewise. I think that JGC's campaign (a) shows us what it really means to be without prejudice; and (b) reveals that others in the business of civil rights persist in viewing the world through those same old goggles.

That said, I think that JGC breaks from this in the essay. He says:

as a geek I empathized with the idea that being different from some societal norm brings enormous pain.

To me, that destroys, at least partially, the idea of a completely independent bystander fighting for truth. It brings us, at least partly, back to someone campaigning for a fellow in his own group -- it's just that the dimension JGC chose to sort by is different from the one that most of society would choose.

I wish John had simply said because Alan Turing’s treatment was wrong and left it at that.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#203

Post by joubert »

jimbokun wrote: post #201
joubert wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it is more moral to be atheistic than to believe in some god.

And a theist would argue that being theistic is more moral. This devolves simply to the question of whether theism or atheism is correct , so the question of the morality of either position is largely beside the point. EDIT: Hacker News is not allowing me to reply to you, so I'll ask my question here: If a group of atheist people shared a set of contradictory beliefs, requiring vile and immoral actions, would that ma…

Except, theistic philosophies (religion), being based on set of contradictory beliefs, allow, no, even require actions from humans that we now consider vile and immoral.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#204

Post by jimbokun »

philwelch wrote: post #129
caryme wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What meaning is that? The meaning I am actually more familiar with is "the belief that one sexual orientation is inherently better than another."

The connotation of "heterosexism" seems closer to "heteronormativity" than "homophobia"--basically the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, or the establishment of heterosexuality as a social norm. For (potentially poor) example, if a television series has a homosexual character who is stereotyped and portrayed in a negative light, that's homophobia. If a television series has no homosexual characters at all des…

I think it would make more sense to use this word the way homophobia is used now. It more closely parallels "racism" as the belief that some races are inherently superior to others.

Would we call a TV show with no minority characters "racist?" Maybe, but it might be seen as stretching the meaning of the word, and the question of whether or not the show was actually racist would be a question to debate, not a part of the definition. I suppose we could have terms for TV shows, movies, corporate boards, startups, etc. that lack minority, gay or other kinds of people. But using an "-ism" for such terms implies discrimination, which I believe should remain open for discussion and debate.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#205

Post by jimbokun »

tsally wrote: post #103
joubert wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical. What cues? Are you thinking a girl learns how she should act by emulating a mom, and the same for a boy in relation to his dad?

Here's the logic of a non-homophobic argument I have heard of. The majority of research on parenting and raising children has been done with heterosexual parents as a base assumption. Someone who is extremely supportive of gay rights who is also a rational thinker might be cautious when considering the issue of adoption by homosexuals. Why be cautious? Because it is necessary to take reasonable measures to guarantee…

"It may be that there are studies that suggest that homosexual families are no different than heterosexual families in terms of impact on the child."

There is also the question of what are considered good outcomes for children. For example, I read somewhere that children of gay parents have sex earlier or more often. Assuming that's true, is it a good or bad thing?

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#206

Post by angelbob »

dejb wrote: post #183
Confusion wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From parents and close relatives it is easy to see a evolutionary reason Which is not a rational reason. That would be the naturalistic fallacy.

Encouraging the propagation your genes not rational? In evolutionary terms that is the the goal.

Generalizing from a situation where it may apply (close relatives) to one where it does not apply isn't rational, even if it's a vaguely similar-looking situation.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#207

Post by lena »

gaius wrote: post #199
lena wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it does matches my experience. When I had relatively simple jobs like working behind a bar, there was no inequality, but in IT there was. Sometimes it was disguised. Men who did the exact same work as women had a different title, so they earned more because technically they had a different role. Dutch research indicated that a big part of the 20% difference is because of the choices women make (though of course…

And I have never met a regular employee who honestly worked more than 50/hrs a week The statistics include all the dirty, dangerous and manual jobs. The ones that are done predominantly by men and that campaigners forget about when they demand equality.

Ah, where I live it is illegal to work more than 50/hrs a week (on average) in those kind of jobs, so my info is not based on those statistics.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#208

Post by jacquesm »

joubert wrote: post #174
jacquesm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that holds water. Gay rights are great, but childrens rights are greater. If there is any doubt about the rights of either group being infringed on by 'experimenting' then you have an immediate problem because nobody will sign off on experimenting on children to see if in the long term it will matter or not. If there would be large numbers of cases proving that it essentially makes no difference then th…

So you're saying my gay partner should not be allowed to adopt my biological kid to provide a stable legal environment? In another scenario, isn't it better for a gay child in foster care to be adopted by gay parents than by straight parents? When you say "peer pressure", is that just a euphemism for bullying?

> So you're saying my gay partner should not be allowed to adopt my biological kid to provide a stable legal environment?

The situation I had in mind was two gay people without children adopting a child.

> In another scenario, isn't it better for a gay child in foster care to be adopted by gay parents than by straight parents?

That would probably be a good thing.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#209

Post by devinj »

eru wrote: post #191
devinj wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other people did do it, and even at nearly the exact same time. Turing just did it more convincingly. (See: Alonzo Church and the Lambda calculus).

And Turing helped a lot with the War effort, building hardware (i.e. stuff you can kick) as well as developing theories.

+1. Yeah, I was only thinking of his work on computation (not even AI!). I should have been more clear.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#210

Post by MartinCron »

jimbokun wrote: post #201
joubert wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it is more moral to be atheistic than to believe in some god.

And a theist would argue that being theistic is more moral. This devolves simply to the question of whether theism or atheism is correct , so the question of the morality of either position is largely beside the point. EDIT: Hacker News is not allowing me to reply to you, so I'll ask my question here: If a group of atheist people shared a set of contradictory beliefs, requiring vile and immoral actions, would that ma…

One argument is that atheists are more moral because they are making moral choices based on what is good and right for other people, instead of saving up their virtue in a bank account in the sky to be cashed in on when they get to Heaven. That is, they aren't being good just because they think God is watching and writing everything down in a little book, they are really just being good.

It's essentially the same argument that Karma is a moral cop-out: you should be good for its own sake, not because the universe is keeping score will reward you in this life or the next.

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