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India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

bbc.com

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Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#171

Post by jm__87 »

Jedd wrote: post #166
jm__87 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this were the case, we'd have 'bred out' the gay, surely? This assumes that there is a gene that determines whether someone is gay or not. I was under the impression that gay and trans are an epigenetic phenomenon that occurs during early development. In the womb, a male brain develops too much along the female trajectory or female too much along the male trajectory, either due to presence of hormones that shoul…

> This assumes that there is a gene that determines whether someone is gay or not. This was evidently parent's assumption, per the claim that gay-shaming was evolutionary. I've taken some liberty by inverting the former and conflating the latter (evolutionary / genetics) but my point is that there's no evidence for (and quite a bit against) the claim that any of this is 'evolutionary'.

Yeah, looks like I replied to the wrong one. Sorry about that.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#172

Post by vinni2 »

vinni2 wrote: post #35

As a gay Indian this is a great news! but it is one thing to decriminalize it legally and complete different thing for societal acceptance and leading a normal life as gay person in India. For an average gay person in India this doesn’t change much. There is still a long way to go. This law was never a problem for me but my family and relative and neighbors are. But it is a good progress.

This article explains my point with many anecdotes! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45430953 The article has anecdotes from rural India but it is not uncommon to hear such stories from urban parts too.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#173

Post by wallace_f »

coldtea wrote: post #165
wallace_f wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am assuming is the golden rule: treat others as you would want to be treated. Don't you think the general population understands that? When people ignore it, we generally call that bad. When people don't understand that, we generally call them psychopaths. Is this really controversial? I mean, as a thought experiment, do you really not internally know that bothering other people who are bot bothering you is wr…

> What I am assuming is the golden rule: treat others as you would want to be treated. Don't you think the general population understands that? When people ignore it, we generally call that bad. When people don't understand that, we generally call them psychopaths. Is this really controversial? No, but it doesn't settle much. For one, it's not always about how people are treated, but also about stopping things you th…

>And I believe that its influence has been overplayed and is insignificant (if not negative)

This always comes up and it's just like the Russian phrase "and you are lynching negroes."

This basically same argument from Russia to the US boils down to: it doesn't matter that you have improved upon the world, and looking to further improve on it, because you were far from perfect yourself and doing some very bad things.

Those bad things should be criticized, but I am certain had you the choice to be born in the pre-enlightenment world that you would not take it.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#174

Post by wallace_f »

rebuilder wrote: post #52
wallace_f wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is so weird. I never understood the motive behind tyrannizing other people. How is that winning at anything other than being an asshole? Why don't people just leave other people alone? Is it so much different to tyrannize a woman for being feminine, or just being attractive? Most of us are instinctively disgusted by that--or at least claim to be?

Certain types of social orders depend on strict control of social mores. Hell, arguably all do to some extent - try walking down the street naked and see how that goes...

I mean, I guess what I was trying to ask is do people not know or feel that it is wrong to not just leave other people alone if they aren't, themselves, bothering anybody?

Why do people reject that? It's literally what freedom and liberty is, and it is the exact opposite of authority and oppression.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#175

Post by coldtea »

wallace_f wrote: post #173
coldtea wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I am assuming is the golden rule: treat others as you would want to be treated. Don't you think the general population understands that? When people ignore it, we generally call that bad. When people don't understand that, we generally call them psychopaths. Is this really controversial? No, but it doesn't settle much. For one, it's not always about how people are treated, but also about stopping things you th…

>And I believe that its influence has been overplayed and is insignificant (if not negative) This always comes up and it's just like the Russian phrase "and you are lynching negroes." This basically same argument from Russia to the US boils down to: it doesn't matter that you have improved upon the world, and looking to further improve on it, because you were far from perfect yourself and doing some very bad things.…

>This always comes up and it's just like the Russian phrase "and you are lynching negroes."

I find nothing wrong with that argument.

In fact, the actual disingenuous Cold War practice of whataboutism was rather the accusation of whataboutism itself.

It was meant as a thought stopper, to only allow one-sized criticism and to prevent putting things into perspective that doesn't flatter the first side.

Knowing that both side X and Y did bad things is totally compatible with trying to fix them (in fact it's a prerequirement).

It also stops you from painting Y as some uniquely evil, while letting X get away scot-free.

But only hearing side X attack Y on some bad shit, and not the other side (because that would be "whataboutism"), just serves to hide what X itself does, and to portray Y as some uniquely evil figure.

>Those bad things should be criticized, but I am certain had you the choice to be born in the pre-enlightenment world that you would not take it.

It's more of a wash. There are tons of places and social classes I'd like to belong to enlightenment, and tons of places and social classes I'd like to avoid being enlightenment.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#176

Post by nnain »

labster wrote: post #64
vijaybritto wrote: post #51

Irony is that a British news outlet is posting about it when they were the ones who introduced that law in India before 157 years!! Anyway, a great step in the right direction!

I'm pretty sure that this is not an example of irony. There's no unexpected or ambiguous element in the British covering news in India, as they have had an interest in the subcontinent since 1600.

I think the OPs point was that out of 1000s of other news channels writing about it, a BBC link will come up on HN.

Last week BBC posted a story titled, "Rocket woman: How to cook curry and get a spacecraft into Mars orbit", about women scientists in Indian Space Research Orginisation. That's how ridiculously biased and condescending they continue to be. And that's why many of us get irritated by their news.

Re: India court legalises gay sex in landmark ruling

#178

Post by labster »

nnain wrote: post #176
labster wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that this is not an example of irony. There's no unexpected or ambiguous element in the British covering news in India, as they have had an interest in the subcontinent since 1600.

I think the OPs point was that out of 1000s of other news channels writing about it, a BBC link will come up on HN. Last week BBC posted a story titled, "Rocket woman: How to cook curry and get a spacecraft into Mars orbit", about women scientists in Indian Space Research Orginisation. That's how ridiculously biased and condescending they continue to be. And that's why many of us get irritated by their news.

While you make some valid points, none of them are even tangentially related to irony.
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