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Is it a choice?

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    IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    And ya'll say I don't make sense.

    I'm registered with the government as being mentally unstable (s'true). What's YOUR excuse?

    Incenjucar on
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    Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Er...

    I'm a tortured soul?

    Nobody understands tortured souls.

    Casual Eddy on
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    ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    I think my problem is you people. You people are my problem.


    It's not hard folks.

    Me: "That doesn't really seem fair."

    To who, you ask?

    No. That's not what I meant. It's the same kind of 'not fair' that applies to life in general. It's not fair that delicious things make you fat. It's not fair that fun things are expensive. Similarly, it's not fair that you can roll with both genders. I meant this in a humorous and ironic way, or perhaps in a playfully kidding manner. I do not actually decry this fact of life on a regular basis.
    You don't actually believe it's our fault you don't know how to tell a joke, right?

    ViolentChemistry on
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    Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I do comedy pretty regularly. Improv and stuff.

    Everyone else gets me.

    Casual Eddy on
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    ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    I do comedy pretty regularly. Improv and stuff.

    Everyone else gets me.
    Are you usually engaged in a serious debate with everyone else when you drop jokes with no lead-in and obscure punch-lines?

    ViolentChemistry on
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    MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I bet you rely pretty heavily on tone and timing. That post could have made sense, read aloud in the right way. By itself it was really just confusing.

    Mahnmut on
    Steam/LoL: Jericho89
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Okay, listen. You + all != ya'll. You + all == y'all. Seriously, where the fuck are you people learning this shit? Why would you ever think the apostrophe goes in the middle of a whole word?

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    Why would you ever think the apostrophe goes in the middle of a whole word?

    Doesn't it?

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Feral wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Why would you ever think the apostrophe goes in the middle of a whole word?

    Doesn't it?

    I'm seeing an N, and I'm seeing a T. The rest of that word seems to be missing, Feral.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Dude.

    Let's be frank.

    "Yall" is not from "You All"

    It's from "Yah All"

    So get over it. All of yahs.

    --

    Marriage is something with a financial attachment isn't fair in general.

    It's an archaic practice for changing ownership of t'eh boobehs from father to son in law.

    Incenjucar on
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    FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    Feral wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Why would you ever think the apostrophe goes in the middle of a whole word?

    Doesn't it?

    I'm seeing an N, and I'm seeing a T. The rest of that word seems to be missing, Feral.

    Ah, I see. The operative term there was "whole."
    I retract my goading.

    Feral on
    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Options
    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Incenjucar wrote:
    Dude.

    Let's be frank.

    "Yall" is not from "You All"

    It's from "Yah All"

    So get over it. All of yahs.
    Nobody says "yah" in front of a vowel. Who the fuck explained this shit to you, somebody who'd suffered a debilitating stroke?

    Seriously, though. Even when you're using it the way you're thinking of, it's a "yuh" sound. So until you see somebody saying "yuhll" while not putting a Gypsy curse on your ass, shut up and put the apostrophe in the right place.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    Incenjucar wrote:
    Dude.

    Let's be frank.

    "Yall" is not from "You All"

    It's from "Yah All"

    So get over it. All of yahs.
    Nobody says "yah" in front of a vowel. Who the fuck explained this shit to you, somebody who'd suffered a debilitating stroke?

    That's because they got all lazy and made it one word.

    Incenjucar on
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    YarYar Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Doe'snt it?

    Yar on
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    Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Apostrophes are really gay.

    But I do'nt think they chose to be.

    Casual Eddy on
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Incenjucar wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Incenjucar wrote:
    Dude.

    Let's be frank.

    "Yall" is not from "You All"

    It's from "Yah All"

    So get over it. All of yahs.
    Nobody says "yah" in front of a vowel. Who the fuck explained this shit to you, somebody who'd suffered a debilitating stroke?

    That's because they got all lazy and made it one word.

    So it's your retarded contention that southerners wander around pronouncing "you" as Y + the A sound in "all"? You're seriously telling me that you believe this?

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
  • Options
    IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    Incenjucar wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Incenjucar wrote:
    Dude.

    Let's be frank.

    "Yall" is not from "You All"

    It's from "Yah All"

    So get over it. All of yahs.
    Nobody says "yah" in front of a vowel. Who the fuck explained this shit to you, somebody who'd suffered a debilitating stroke?

    That's because they got all lazy and made it one word.

    So it's your retarded contention that southerners wander around pronouncing "you" as Y + the A sound in "all"? You're seriously telling me that you believe this?

    I'm saying that "you", as in, "Yoo," isn't often pronounced in a much different manner such as "Yuh" or "Yah."

    Aside from that, I am enjoying your torment.

    Incenjucar on
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    Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Mahnmut wrote:
    I bet you rely pretty heavily on tone and timing. That post could have made sense, read aloud in the right way. By itself it was really just confusing.

    Yes, fine, that makes sense.

    No one gets me on the internet.

    Casual Eddy on
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Incenjucar wrote:
    Aside from that, I am enjoying your torment.
    Torment is trying to make sense of one of Katankeris's posts, or trying to take Kusu seriously. You just make me fucking sad.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
  • Options
    WerdnaWerdna Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Sumaleth wrote:
    Do people who believe that homosexuality is a choice also believe that hetrosexuality is a choice?

    (A quick show of hands, please, from anyone who remembers making the conscious decision to be attracted to a particular sex on reaching puberty.)

    Or do they believe that homosexuals have the same instincts as hetrosexuals, but choose to act against those instincts?

    Genuinely curious.

    Such questions are too obvious for narrow-minded dipshits to ever ponder-- they live in a world filled with false dichotomies. Only when posed to them do they wonder.

    It's pretty typical of heterosexuals to feel the need to delineate all our psychological and physiological needs and desires-- all the while utilizing our white racist biology to self fulfill their own hypothese. Sure sexuality is linked both to enculturation and genetic disposition but that doesn't mean that there exists some formula for why it is what we are. My main point is that the its rediculous that homosexuality is treated as abnormal. Often equivocating homosexuality to pedophilia or beastiality and pawning it off as prime case studies for analyzing "abnormality" or even "immorality" in human sexuality.

    Werdna on
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    ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    Yar wrote:
    Shinto wrote:
    In terms of evolution that actually meshes with another theory in which gay people act as adults who can put resources into the group without eventually increasing the load by having children who need care.
    Maybe, but the leading theory is that it's just an unfortunate byproduct of immune system evolution.

    All evolution is just an unfortunate byproduct of random mutation. It being a byproduct doesn't mean that it isn't a trait with survival value.

    Shinto on
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    JohannenJohannen Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Shinto wrote:
    Yar wrote:
    Shinto wrote:
    In terms of evolution that actually meshes with another theory in which gay people act as adults who can put resources into the group without eventually increasing the load by having children who need care.
    Maybe, but the leading theory is that it's just an unfortunate byproduct of immune system evolution.

    All evolution is just an unfortunate byproduct of random mutation. It being a byproduct doesn't mean that it isn't a trait with survival value.

    Then what's the product?

    Johannen on
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    MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Shinto wrote:
    All evolution is just an unfortunate byproduct of random mutation. It being a byproduct doesn't mean that it isn't a trait with survival value.

    I'm not wedded to the idea that gayness is "helpful" in any sense. You know, early argiculture was an example of a strategy that hurt each individual member of a society (dramatically lowering their quality of life) but which helped the society overall perpetuate.

    There's this idea that evolution = good, but it's not really true. Evolution is no more good than any random natural process, and being gay doesn't really have anything to do morally with being a helpful uncle.

    MrMister on
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    CephalicCarnageCephalicCarnage Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Werdna wrote:
    Sumaleth wrote:
    Do people who believe that homosexuality is a choice also believe that hetrosexuality is a choice?

    (A quick show of hands, please, from anyone who remembers making the conscious decision to be attracted to a particular sex on reaching puberty.)

    Or do they believe that homosexuals have the same instincts as hetrosexuals, but choose to act against those instincts?

    Genuinely curious.

    Such questions are too obvious for narrow-minded dipshits to ever ponder-- they live in a world filled with false dichotomies. Only when posed to them do they wonder.

    It's pretty typical of heterosexuals to feel the need to delineate all our psychological and physiological needs and desires-- all the while utilizing our white racist biology to self fulfill their own hypothese. Sure sexuality is linked both to enculturation and genetic disposition but that doesn't mean that there exists some formula for why it is what we are. My main point is that the its rediculous that homosexuality is treated as abnormal. Often equivocating homosexuality to pedophilia or beastiality and pawning it off as prime case studies for analyzing "abnormality" or even "immorality" in human sexuality.

    Its things like this i wish i could say to people in real life. But unfortunatly, the only people i know in real life, who refuse to believe that its a choice, are the religious fanatics who get extremely angry and violent when you say anything that goes against thier precious doctrine. And when you pwn them in argument, they simply say "this is what the bible told me and if god says gays will burn in hell then being gay is WRONG" And when you say anything more after that they get violent. This is why religion has caused the most wars, jeeeze, so much violence and anger.

    CephalicCarnage on
    We are not evil because of the evil things we do, we do evil because we ARE evil.
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    _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    Werdna wrote:
    Sumaleth wrote:
    Do people who believe that homosexuality is a choice also believe that hetrosexuality is a choice?

    (A quick show of hands, please, from anyone who remembers making the conscious decision to be attracted to a particular sex on reaching puberty.)

    Or do they believe that homosexuals have the same instincts as hetrosexuals, but choose to act against those instincts?

    Genuinely curious.

    Such questions are too obvious for narrow-minded dipshits to ever ponder-- they live in a world filled with false dichotomies. Only when posed to them do they wonder.

    It's pretty typical of heterosexuals to feel the need to delineate all our psychological and physiological needs and desires-- all the while utilizing our white racist biology to self fulfill their own hypothese. Sure sexuality is linked both to enculturation and genetic disposition but that doesn't mean that there exists some formula for why it is what we are. My main point is that the its rediculous that homosexuality is treated as abnormal. Often equivocating homosexuality to pedophilia or beastiality and pawning it off as prime case studies for analyzing "abnormality" or even "immorality" in human sexuality.

    Its things like this i wish i could say to people in real life. But unfortunatly, the only people i know in real life, who refuse to believe that its a choice, are the religious fanatics who get extremely angry and violent when you say anything that goes against thier precious doctrine. And when you pwn them in argument, they simply say "this is what the bible told me and if god says gays will burn in hell then being gay is WRONG" And when you say anything more after that they get violent. This is why religion has caused the most wars, jeeeze, so much violence and anger.

    You should tell them to research what God says about consuming shellfish.

    _J_ on
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    MrMister wrote:
    I'm not wedded to the idea that gayness is "helpful" in any sense. You know, early argiculture was an example of a strategy that hurt each individual member of a society (dramatically lowering their quality of life) but which helped the society overall perpetuate.
    The theory is that the retention of homosexuality is a group-benefit, not an individual-benefit. So yeah, it would be much like agriculture, where it might suck to be you, or suck more to be you than to be your older brother, but the tribe as a whole benefits.
    MrMister wrote:
    There's this idea that evolution = good, but it's not really true. Evolution is no more good than any random natural process, and being gay doesn't really have anything to do morally with being a helpful uncle.

    O_o When homosexuality is discussed as an evolved trait, morality generally doesn't play a big part. Retained evolutionary traits tend to be beneficial, or at least not detrimental, in the setting in which they evolved. As a species, we spent a fucking long-ass time hunting and gathering and living in fairly cohesive groups. In that setting, a small but steady supply of adult workers who did their share of the work, only needed an individual-sized portion of the benefits, and had full commitment to the community would have been quite valuable to the group as a whole. The individual might not profit, but the genetic pool from which he or she sprang would be given an advantage.

    I don't think anyone's arguing that gays are biologically compelled to be generous to their siblings' children. Much like a lot of other things, what benefits a hunter-gatherer tribe is not going to help a modern society one damn bit. About the closest thing out there now is gay adoption, but that's much more of a fringe benefit than something truly advantageous.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    Can we remove the "beneficial" and "detrimental" vocabulary from the evolution discussions? Please?

    Things change over time. Mutations occur. Sometimes a group will die out. That group does not pass on its mutations. Other groups do not die out and so their mutations are passed on. Sometimes the reason for a group dying out can be linked to the mutation that occured within that group.

    See how we can avoid that how "beneficial" and "detrimental" mess?

    _J_ on
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Not really.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    Not really.

    How so?

    _J_ on
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    _J_ wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Not really.

    How so?
    I'm not seeing a benefit in replacing two words with a paragraph apiece, particularly when those two words are already followed by "in the setting in which they evolved." It seems to me that neither brevity nor utility nor clarity are in any way served by that.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    _J_ wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Not really.

    How so?

    Beneficial = mutation that increases survival rate, even if indirectly.
    Detrimental = mutation that decreases survival rate, even if indirectly.

    Working around them is sort of like working around plus and minus in a math discussion. Sure, you can do it, but what's the point?

    Phoenix-D on
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    MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    _J_ wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Not really.

    How so?

    They're pretty much shorthand for what you just said. I think you already went over this in that thread about bees.

    Mahnmut on
    Steam/LoL: Jericho89
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    _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    _J_ wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    Not really.

    How so?
    I'm not seeing a benefit in replacing two words with a paragraph apiece, particularly when those two words are already followed by "in the setting in which they evolved." It seems to me that neither brevity nor utility nor clarity are in any way served by that.

    "beneficial" and "detrimental" are value claims that replace one's understanding of what actually occurs with an idea of a moral/ethical value to the act and lead to the word association games that give rise to the "evolution gives us insight into moral qualities" crap.

    If we do not use words that have those associations and instead merely describe what happens then we can have a conversation that is not sidetracked into asinine moral or ethical claims about evolution.

    "Things change over time. Sometimes those changes lead to a group dying out. Sometimes they do not."

    "Things change over time. These changes can be seen as beneficial changes to a group or detrimental to a group."

    See the difference?

    The words "beneficial" and "detrimental" can have an other-worldly connotation. We can speak of what is beneficial or detrimental to the soul, to the mind, to one's place in God's eternal scheme of things.

    But if we avoid using those words and instead accurately talk about what occurs we do not open the proverbial door to those conversations.

    _J_ on
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    bone daddybone daddy Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    _J_ wrote:
    "beneficial" and "detrimental" are value claims that replace one's understanding of what actually occurs with an idea of a moral/ethical value to the act
    No, they don't. They are terms that, when used in this context, have absolutely no moral or ethical baggage whatsoever. Survival and biology are pretty much as amoral as it gets. Your understanding of this is flawed.

    bone daddy on
    Rogue helicopter?
    Ecoterrorism is actually the single largest terrorist threat at the moment. They don't usually kill people, but they blow up or set on fire very expensive things.
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    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    It should be ntoed that msot cultures in the past did not have strict sexuality guidelines like we did. Like in ancient Greece for example homosexuality amongst married men was fairly common. Therefore homosexual activities really didn't effect ones chances of passing on thier genes. In that case homosexuality could be considered survival "neutral".

    nexuscrawler on
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    sanstodosanstodo Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    It should be ntoed that msot cultures in the past did not have strict sexuality guidelines like we did. Like in ancient Greece for example homosexuality amongst married men was fairly common. Therefore homosexual activities really didn't effect ones chances of passing on thier genes. In that case homosexuality could be considered survival "neutral".

    It wasn't considered "homosexuality" in any meaningful sense of the word. Homosexuality is a modern concept that carries specific, time and culture specific meanings that do not apply to some other cultures and other periods of time. Calling certain greeks "homosexuals" is no more accurate than calling sex between masters and apprentices in Renaissance Europe homosexual. The term itself does not apply since the constructions of sexuality and gender differed significantly than they do now in western society.

    sanstodo on
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    ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    MrMister wrote:
    I'm not wedded to the idea that gayness is "helpful" in any sense.

    But in Massachusetts you could be.

    Yeah, I'm not really into the idea either. I was just bringing it up since those kind of theories were being brought up.

    Shinto on
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    _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    bone daddy wrote:
    _J_ wrote:
    "beneficial" and "detrimental" are value claims that replace one's understanding of what actually occurs with an idea of a moral/ethical value to the act
    No, they don't. They are terms that, when used in this context, have absolutely no moral or ethical baggage whatsoever. Survival and biology are pretty much as amoral as it gets. Your understanding of this is flawed.

    But when someone ignores the context and looks instead at only the words they can read morality into the conversation because the words can easily be read to have a moral or ethical quality. Good, bad, beneficial, detrimental. These are words that can easily be seen as moral value claims and if we do not use them we can keep the conversation clear of moral or ethical interpretations.

    _J_ on
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    ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    _J_ wrote:
    Can we remove the "beneficial" and "detrimental" vocabulary from the evolution discussions? Please?

    Things change over time. Mutations occur. Sometimes a group will die out. That group does not pass on its mutations. Other groups do not die out and so their mutations are passed on. Sometimes the reason for a group dying out can be linked to the mutation that occured within that group.

    See how we can avoid that how "beneficial" and "detrimental" mess?

    You wouldn't say the mutations have beneficial or detrimental effects on the survival of those gene lines?

    I don't think we are in any danger of anthropomorphizing ourselves into error with this language.

    Shinto on
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    TachTach Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    _J_ wrote:
    bone daddy wrote:
    _J_ wrote:
    "beneficial" and "detrimental" are value claims that replace one's understanding of what actually occurs with an idea of a moral/ethical value to the act
    No, they don't. They are terms that, when used in this context, have absolutely no moral or ethical baggage whatsoever. Survival and biology are pretty much as amoral as it gets. Your understanding of this is flawed.

    But when someone ignores the context and looks instead at only the words they can read morality into the conversation because the words can easily be read to have a moral or ethical quality. Good, bad, beneficial, detrimental. These are words that can easily be seen as moral value claims and if we do not use them we can keep the conversation clear of moral or ethical interpretations.

    Just because they CAN doesn't mean they WILL. All you do around here is argue linguistical semantics. Can't you do anything else?

    Tach on
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