Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On Geeks and Gays

newstilt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 232 posts

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#211

Post by jacquesm »

thingie wrote: post #156
jacquesm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had assumed I was the only one. That's strange then because there are plenty of people here that have stated openly and without reservation that they are gay or transgender. In a population of this size you should be very surprised if you are the only gay person.

While it would be very surprising to actually be the only one, it's not surprising to feel as the only one. It's quite reasonable to believe that a randomly chosen person is not gay, so you can't just pick someone and think, he is too, fine, I'm not alone. Statistics are not enough, real concrete persons count.

Given the size of the HN population you could expect 100's to 1000's of people to be gay. It's true that the distribution is such that the chance that someone is gay is low but if you approach 10 people your chances are better than even that at least one of them is gay.

Quite a few of them are 'out' in public, google can help you out there.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#212

Post by tsally »

doki_pen wrote: post #173
tsally wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, subjecting someone of lesser brilliance (99.9999999% of the population) to Turing's treatment would be equally immoral. Seriously destabilizing a suicidal person is murder and on a moral level I don't believe in claiming that a particular murder is more or less immoral than another. Murder is murder and I don't think you can compare magnitudes. So if he had been an ordinary guy, his murder would sti…

Doesn't murder require intent? Are you saying that the government planned on destabili+ng him in order to make him commit suicide? Am I just thinking of murder 1?

I was using murder in a colloquial sense, not a legal one. I'm pretty sure in England the legal term for what was done to Turing is constructive manslaughter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter_in_English_law#Unl...). But IANAL.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#213

Post by rue »

axod wrote: post #140
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #4

All in all, a great essay. But: >I’m conflicted about whether gay couples should be allowed to adopt. Why on earth shouldn't a gay couple be allowed to adopt?

If you asked the population if they'd have been happy being brought up by gay parents, the vast majority would say "no".

If instead you ask people who actually know what the hell they are talking about, q.f. people who were brought up by gay parents, you will find the vast majority to be quite happy about it.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#214

Post by luchak »

xiaoma wrote: post #159
lena wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women's: Women make less than men on average. They also make very different choices of what jobs to work in, how many hours to work The problem is not that women make less than men on average, they often make less than men when doing the exact same job, for the exact same hours. and they are much more likely to have interruptions in their career. Did you read the thread about job hoppers, where many men said that job…

The problem is not that women make less than men on average, they often make less than men when doing the exact same job, for the exact same hours. Could you share any citations? Thus far, when trying to research this issue, keep running into the well-debunked The 76 cents (or 72 cents or X cents) on the dollar myth that still enjoys popularity amongst feminists. Unfortunately, that statistic simply compares the earn…

Okay, let's go with the GAO: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-35

Unless I'm horribly misreading the study, the claim a figure around 80 cents on the dollar after controlling for external factors, including hours worked, experience, and occupation. It's a lot worse before that.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#215

Post by cj »

tome wrote: post #166
cj wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was accentuating the difference between foster care and growing up with parents . Foster care provides for little to no genuine love.

But foster care wasn't what dzorz was arguing for.

Decreasing the supply of parents willing to adopt increases the number of children who will never have parents. It's common sense.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#216

Post by rjurney »

madair wrote: post #107
rjurney wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He uh... also tried to poison his PhD advisor.

Hopefully someone will fix this misinformation soon, and gaddammit dude, when you're going to accuse someone of attempted murder, do a little fact check and send along a reference link or something for crissakkes

Whoops, you're right. I mixed him up with Oppenheimer.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#218

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jules wrote: post #143
axod wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like he was murdered because he was gay. I don't think it was quite that clear cut. I'm quite a believer in "if he hadn't done it, someone else would have" personally. I don't mean to belittle anyones contribution, but the idea that there's only one genius who can come up with something seems very unlikely to me. Most inventions are 'discovered' by many people at around the same time.

> You make it sound like he was murdered because he was gay. I don't think it was quite that clear cut. Lets turn it around then. If he hadn't been gay, would he have been murdered? > Most inventions are 'discovered' by many people at around the same time. Yeah, this is true. Even revolutionary ideas seem to show up at multiple places at the same time. So it seems that the state of knowledge at the time of invention…

>If he hadn't been gay, would he have been murdered?

He committed suicide.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#219

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tsally wrote: post #212
doki_pen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't murder require intent? Are you saying that the government planned on destabili+ng him in order to make him commit suicide? Am I just thinking of murder 1?

I was using murder in a colloquial sense, not a legal one. I'm pretty sure in England the legal term for what was done to Turing is constructive manslaughter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter_in_English_law#Unl... ). But IANAL.

>I'm pretty sure in England the legal term for what was done to Turing is constructive manslaughter.

The legal term would be something like "proper application of criminal law". You can't claim that it was constructive manslaughter to apply the law at the time.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#220

Post by petercooper »

tman wrote: post #62
petercooper wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Try the average husband. When the wife asks "does my butt look big in this", there's an immediate and well acknowledged convention to be polite rather than logical ;-)

Post reply on HN