What's crazy to me is that he was never charged with a crime, just a fee.
Should probably make it illegal.
The Lie That Made Me
81–90 of 107 posts
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#82At one of the military bases my dad was stationed at, he told me about a local woman who was going about this the old fashioned way. She was dark haired, and had 6 blonde boys. Every year when there was a new crew at the base, she'd show up at the local watering hole and scout out the tallest, blondest, smartest serviceman she could find, and you can guess the rest. She never wanted anything else from those men, and…
> Every year when there was a new crew at the base, she'd show up at the local watering hole and scout out the tallest, blondest, smartest serviceman she could find, and you can guess the rest. Did she give them an IQ test before inviting them to her place? How did she determine which one was the smartest? This reminds me of an article I read a while back about chinese women who were desperate to use US/EU sperm bank…
> How did she determine which one was the smartest?
Beats me. But here's the Ann Landers test for intelligence based on having a conversation with the person:
1. smart people talk about ideas
2. average people talk about events
3. below average people gossip about other people
I know, I know, it's not perfect, but it's not a bad proxy. Yes, I indulge in gossip myself. No, I deliberately did not say "all" people for a reason.
> Not sure she was very nice to her fatherless children
I have no idea if she was a good mother or not, but it's unfair to presume she wasn't.
> or to the taxpayers
Of course people take advantage of welfare.
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#83Re: The Lie That Made Me
#84I'm not even remotely in the author's situation, but who hasn't sometimes resented some aspect of how they came to be? To which my own response is always "but that's what produced me! If anything had gone differently in even the minutest way (like which of those wiggly things wins the race) I wouldn't be here! Someone else would be. Case closed.
I know the odds that I exist are incredibly remote, and so am happy it happened and I'm alive.
The odds that you would exist to perceive yourself existing, however, are 100%.
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a study that showed that cuckoldry was pretty rare, the rate was around 1-2%[0]: "Reading the internet, or even perusing the scientific literature, you'd get the idea that people are constantly cheating on their spouses. Indeed, scientists have estimated that anywhere from 10-30 percent of men are unknowingly raising children who are not their own. This situation is referred to as cuckoldry, or scientifical…
I'd love for this to be true, but it does conflict with various state policy decisions on the matter that seem to indicate at least a belief in the opposite. France's policy is particularly striking, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_paternity_testing#France It is possible that state institutions make these policies based exactly on my assumption above, which seems like it could be incorrect. Or perhaps even 1-2% is…
I don't see the conflict. Whether you're looking at 70M population or 10-15M kids, 1-2% of that is a lot of people.
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
France is incredibly regressive and conservative when it comes to anything related to genetics. For example, for people doing IVF, it's not allowed to test the embryos for viability. The argument is that such testing is too close to eugenics, so instead women doing IVF cannot get any guarantees that the embryos are viable and it makes the procedure harder. Doing a DNA test for yourself is also illegal... Surrogacy is…
Maybe they are not incredibly regressive and conservative. Maybe they are different. You may not agree with their position but it is very imperialistic to suppose that any custom or law which is not exactly as it is in America must be considered backwards.
For the record, I'm French not American, voting for politicians to change those laws is one of my many deciding factors when choosing which politicians to vote for and I have a sister who had to do IVF so my close family was directly impacted by those nonsensical laws. My mum and her sister also broke the law by ordering two DNA test to confirm a long standing theory that my mum's father was not her biological father (her non-biological father had never hugged her and was always much colder towards her than towards her sister so having a confirmation of that was a relief for my mum)
Anyway, I do hope that I'm not being imperialistic when I criticize laws of my own country.
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd love for this to be true, but it does conflict with various state policy decisions on the matter that seem to indicate at least a belief in the opposite. France's policy is particularly striking, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_paternity_testing#France It is possible that state institutions make these policies based exactly on my assumption above, which seems like it could be incorrect. Or perhaps even 1-2% is…
France is incredibly regressive and conservative when it comes to anything related to genetics. For example, for people doing IVF, it's not allowed to test the embryos for viability. The argument is that such testing is too close to eugenics, so instead women doing IVF cannot get any guarantees that the embryos are viable and it makes the procedure harder. Doing a DNA test for yourself is also illegal... Surrogacy is…
Surrogacy is perhaps not the best example of French conservatism.
Curiously, only the USA and formerly Soviet countries permit paid surrogacy, and even altruistic surrogacy is illegal in much of the EU, including Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy.
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair that selection process is close enough to how it works for everyone in the world, minus not wanting anything to do with them hah
>To be fair that selection process is close enough to how it works for everyone in the world As a short and not very attractive male, tell me about it :) In truth, before modern civilization, only one single male reproduced for every 17 females. That's some inequality, which I think is on par with how the market looks like on Tinder for some guys.
Could you please citate your 1 male -17 female ratio? The gender ratio wiki page tells nothing about it.
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
France is incredibly regressive and conservative when it comes to anything related to genetics. For example, for people doing IVF, it's not allowed to test the embryos for viability. The argument is that such testing is too close to eugenics, so instead women doing IVF cannot get any guarantees that the embryos are viable and it makes the procedure harder. Doing a DNA test for yourself is also illegal... Surrogacy is…
Surrogacy is perhaps not the best example of French conservatism. Curiously, only the USA and formerly Soviet countries permit paid surrogacy, and even altruistic surrogacy is illegal in much of the EU, including Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy.
True, the main reason I talked about it is because
a) it's also part of the same discourse related to bioethics, the legal reasoning in France has the same component as the legal reasoning around euthanasia, paternity testing and dna test in that it doesn't recognize the rights of people to dispose of their own body.
b) When my sister was trying to do IVF and didn't get results for years, they were investigating the possibility of doing surrogacy abroad
c) I voted for Macron, among many reasons, because he was more open minded about surrogacy than his opponents.
I can see an argument against paid surrogacy but making altruistic surrogacy illegal is something I disagree vehemently.
But then again, I'm also very much in disagreement about the French legislation against prostitution (interestingly most organizations of sex workers or organizations that are implicated in helping sex workers are also against the law there too)
Re: The Lie That Made Me
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you still get to choose character traits or other genetic factors even though the donor is anonymous? If someone swaps out your choice this affects the outcome that you hoped for.
> I think you still get to choose character traits or other genetic factors even though the donor is anonymous? I suspect that there's no persuasive evidence that character traits are determined by genetic factors in ways that we can control or reliably predict.
Children usually resemble their parents more than you seem to think. There is probably plenty of research out there that tries to find out how much is due to nature or nurture.