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[Yoink]

Facebook's advertising algorithms seem to have suffered a psychotic break.
Usually they give me things that are at least music or gaming-related, or the occasional ads for clothing or accessories (even if they usually aren't my cup of tea), but just now it's hit me with an article on the health benefits of going braless followed by an ad for a Christian dating website. Goodness me, just what I needed.    

[EnigmaticHat]

Truean, I would be a lot more worried about that argument if Trump had actually won.  Even with a hacking operation behind him he still lost the popular vote by 3 million.  Plus I would hardly define Obama as a sign of radicalization.  We've escalated from Bill Clinton, who was a moderate, to Obama who's actually a liberal on some issues but not all.  If the radicalization of the democratic party continues maybe our next presidential candidate will be capable of expressing anger.

Edit: Also, if I can't get health insurance my life is basically over.  Its an exaggeration but not a huge one.  So yeah I'm not going to "get along" with the party that's actively trying to destroy me.

[overseer05-15]

if Trump had actually won.

While I don't like him either, he was put into office via a system that has been in place for something like 250 years. The electoral college is what decides the winner whether or not you like him. Saying he lost just because he didn't get the popular vote is uninformed and incorrect.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I just read OSC's homophobic rant. One of them, at least. It feels like a punch to the gut. The author of one of my favorite books (a list several hundred long) is invoking fallacies the way kabbalists invoke Names of God.

The average fifteen-year old teenage boy is genetically predisposed to copulate with anything that moves. We are compassionate and forgiving of  those who cannot resist this temptation, but  we do not regard as adult anyone who has not overcome it; and we can only help others overcome these "genetic predispositions" by teaching them  that we expect them to meet a  higher  standard of behavior than the one their own body teaches them.

Teenagers want to fuck literally everything that moves. That includes gay sex. So teenagers do gay things. This means that gay adults are regressive and just need to grow up.

HOW?! HOW CAN SOMEBODY CAPABLE OF INTELLIGENT THOUGHT WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! If they put one second of thought into this, they would have realized that heterosexual sex is just as biologically driven, and that the argument is basically just an assertion that gay sex is immature simply because it is.

Those hypocrites are going to complain about how this is "intolerant," but look! I'm not rooting for your deaths! That means that I'm still being tolerant.

Those gays are hypocrites because they won't admit how sinful they're being.

Now that I've explained that the gays should be punished by our church, I'm going to quickly switch to legal matters and hope that you didn't notice that my argument is basically "it's sinful and immature", which isn't sufficient to make it illegal.

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the book, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.

I don't want them in jail! I just want them to stop doing it. I also want the good straight people not to worry about the fabric of society crumbling around us and the government unable to help. You know. We need to protect marriage by banning marriage. That makes sense.

Doing gay stuff is bad because people think it's bad. Tautology? What tautology?

THE GAYS ARE TRYING TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY AND INSTITUTE TYRANNY

Also, we need to be as intolerant of the gay community as possible. Did I say that I wasn't intolerant? Meh. Forget that.

I'm showing my love to gay people by plugging my ears whenever they try to justify their evils, and trying to get them locked up.

They'll all be sorry! They'll all burn in hell if they don't stop!!! They'll see that I was right all along! And that's why we should be as intolerant as possible - to stay pure, and so that the people in hell won't be able to blame us for their suffering.

FUCK YOU, CARD. FUCK YOU.

[Sergarr]

Who's that person and why should I care about him?

[overseer05-15]

Orson Scott Card, guy who wrote Ender's game, Pathfinder, and that stuff.

Pathfinder like the RPG?

[Yoink]

@DL: Why the fuck are you bringing that topic in here?
I'd rather not have to avoid the WTF thread for the duration of such a derail. My hearing is bad enough without being deafened by the resulting echoes.   

[heydude6]

Orson Scott Card, guy who wrote Ender's game, Pathfinder, and that stuff.

Pathfinder like the RPG?

Nah, it's just another book.

Can't say this is the first time I've heard of him being a homophobic idiot. It's old news. The only advice I can give you is to remember that this guy does not have any influence as far as spreading those stupid views are concerned. When they turned Enders game into a movie, there was a massive boycott to prevent him from getting any money off of it because of his views.

Society is generally on your side when it comes to this issue Doze. Just let this racist but talented author die of old age like the rest of his type.

[FallacyofUrist]

The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engagng in homosexual practices in the first place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior, to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not to shake the confidence of the community in the polity's ability to provide rules for safe, stable, dependable mamage and family relationships.

It's not that bad when viewed with context. Here, for example. I'm fairly sure what he's saying is that the laws are intended to be a deterrent. As an analogy, we have nuclear weapons, not because we hope to need to use them, but because others might hesitate to use their own nukes on us. Jail is... nasty. I've seen and read various nastiness about how bad our jails are here in the U.S. Ideally, we wouldn't send anybody there, but rather use education programs, community service, and counseling to deal with the issues the crime commiter has.

My two cents.

[smjjames]

The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engagng in homosexual practices in the first place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior, to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not to shake the confidence of the community in the polity's ability to provide rules for safe, stable, dependable mamage and family relationships.

It's not that bad when viewed with context. Here, for example. I'm fairly sure what he's saying is that the laws are intended to be a deterrent. As an analogy, we have nuclear weapons, not because we hope to need to use them, but because others might hesitate to use their own nukes on us. Jail is... nasty. I've seen and read various nastiness about how bad our jails are here in the U.S. Ideally, we wouldn't send anybody there, but rather use education programs, community service, and counseling to deal with the issues the crime commiter has.

My two cents.

It'd still be homophobia when viewed with context, and you're walking into bad places by equating homosexuality with crime and saying education, community services, and counseling would fix a 'homosexuality crime'.

Not saying that you're being homophobic, it doesn't sound like it, I'm saying that you may be unintentionally walking into some pretty dark places.

Really, this discussion IS in danger of walking into some dark places that some forumers would rather we NOT go.

And Yoink has said that he'd rather not have the topic be discussed in this thread.

And you probably should attribute that quoted quote to Orson Scott Card, so that it's not accidentially attributed to any forumers.

[Descan]

... we got that much, the issue is *what* he wants the laws to deter. What? why would you think that wasn't obvious? That's still pretty fuckin' bad, even with 'context.' And his underlying assertion that homosexual relationships and "two dad/two mom" families *aren't* able to provide "safe, stable, dependably marriage and family relationships."

Like, we get what he's saying; it's *why* he's a shitbag.

Also homosexual activities = nuclear bombs?

Also: Ideally nothing, that's what *works.* "Scare 'em straight," and high-powered punishment-as-deterrent... doesn't. Just look at Norways penal system and their recidivism rate vs. the States.

[smjjames]

We really need to rocket the 'crime and punishment: what works and what doesn't' tangent away from the 'Orson Scott Card is a homophobic bastard' tangent because it'll get conflated when the two are talked about in the same post.

Trueans probably gonna go 'WTF, why did you guys bring that in here?'.

[Descan]

Sorry, they're both two of my many hot-button bug-bear issues that rile me up. I couldn't let that go without comment or I'd be bugger'd every time I came back to the conversation.

[Silverthrone]

It is simply the nature of things. The more clever and intelligent a chap is, the more servere are the depths of stupidity that he can reach.

I do not know who he is. I have not read his works (a brief information trawl reveals that they might be a bit over my head), and I cannot claim that I am particularly enticed to do so, not at a glance. Thus, I cannot say much regarding his intelligence. It is greater than mine, but that does not prove anything. However, he is certainly a man of some faculties, and thus a very easy victim for that strange laziness that can affect a clever mind, and make it impossibly stupid in its operation when handling certain tasks.

However, the difficulty with piecing a man's opinion together is that, on the internet, all expressions of it are available all at once, like a clump. His statement that sodomy laws ought to remain 'on the book' (whatever that could mean) appears to come from an essay written in 1990. That is, rather a long time ago. In later years, following the decision of the union's Supreme Court that such laws are unconstitutional, he appears to have backed away from that opinion.
That is not to say that he does not still carry a basket of some unsettling (and really quite silly and half-baked) opinions on such matters. I am not particularly willing to lend my defense to this stranger. But in an age where every opinion ever expressed becomes part of an on-line time compression, when in reality they have been uttered several decades apart, it is very important to keep it in mind.

In brief: silly, silly man, made all the sillier because that he knows that he is clever, and stops trying to be clever when he ought to be, and a brief saunter on one of my on-line hobby horses: 'When' is of equal importance to 'What'. And further, I...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Right, well, er... Moving on.

[hops]

Orson Scott Card's been that way for ages. I'm honestly hoping he dies fast so that I can actually read his books without supporting him.