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I'd say that geeks tend to think about their environment a lot more than other people because geeks tend to think about systems in general. I have never encoun
by mpk 16y ago
I'd say that geeks tend to think about their environment a lot more than other people because geeks tend to think about systems in general.
I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia. Gay people seem to me to be just as likely to be virtuous or decadent as straight people.
Discriminating against people for having a different sexual orientation seems totally irrational to me. As far as I'm concerned, 'gay rights' generally equate to 'human rights' and you can sign me up for supporting those any day.
- pbiggar 16y agoI've found that geeks tend to be either very religious, or very atheist, but rarely in between (or at least much more rarely than in real life). Perhaps it is the same with other moral issues. (Alternatively, perhaps JGC is very religious, and his religion guides his views on gay adoption and marriage.)
- MartinCron 16y agoWhat? Being theist or atheist is not a moral issue, it's a philosophical issue about the nature of the universe. The notion that atheists are less moral than theists is a common misconception.
- jon_dahl 16y agoI don't think he was saying that one (religious or atheist) is more moral than the other. Just that when we geeks take a stand on a fundamental question, whether it's moral or philosophical/theological, we often do it with conviction.
- joubert 16y agoI would argue it is more moral to be atheistic than to believe in some god.
- jimbokun 16y agoAnd a theist would argue that being theistic is more moral. This devolves simply to the question of whether theism or atheism is correct, so the question of the morality of either position is largely beside the point. EDIT: Hacker News is not allowing me to reply to you, so I'll ask my question here: If a group of atheist people shared a set of contradictory beliefs, requiring vile and immoral actions, would that make atheism immoral?
- joubert 16y agoExcept, theistic philosophies (religion), being based on set of contradictory beliefs, allow, no, even require actions from humans that we now consider vile and immoral.
- MartinCron 16y agoOne argument is that atheists are more moral because they are making moral choices based on what is good and right for other people, instead of saving up their virtue in a bank account in the sky to be cashed in on when they get to Heaven. That is, they aren't being good just because they think God is watching and writing everything down in a little book, they are really just being good. It's essentially the same argument that Karma is a moral cop-out: you should be good for its own sake, not because the universe is keeping score will reward you in this life or the next.
- astine 16y agoThat depends on what you mean by 'moral.' In common usage, it is a synonym for 'ethics,' but in older usage it had religious connotations. Using the older meaning, a 'moral atheist' is an oxymoron. The fact that many religious ethicists still use the word this way leads to some unfortunate misunderstandings.
- j-g-faustus 16y agoI've always thought that [gay | labor | women's | black's | etc] rights all collapse to merely human rights, and find it curious that we see the need to carve it up in a whole bunch of special cases.
- TNO 16y agoI'm not so sure about labor rights... More info needed.
- caryme 16y agoThat's just the thing. If we could realize that it's the same issue over and over again, perhaps it would become less of an issue. If only. In US-parlance, all men are created equal. We said that right off the bat. Once we decided that by men, we meant people, what further argument is there to have? All means all.
- smallblacksun 16y agoMurderers and pedophiles are okay then? No? So all doesn't mean all, but some subset of all.
- caryme 16y agoSaying that all people are created equally does not mean that all people are free from error or consequence.
- wallflower 16y ago> I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia. A gay friend told me about the theory that homophobia is misogyny e.g. some people are homophobic because they don't like men acting like women (mannerisms, dress, voice pitch, sensitivity) because they dislike women.
- philwelch 16y agoIronically enough, a homophobic friend told me about the theory that homosexuality is misogyny e.g. some men are homosexual because they dislike women and don't want to associate with them. Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure my comment will shock more people than your comment--even though both comments posit some sort of handwavy unsubstantiated psychological theory nakedly constructed to fit some sort of political bias, yours sounds better because it fits the political bias most of us--myself included--agree with. Or--to put it a more direct way--speculating about the psychology of people who disagree with you is an especially useless type of ad hominem.
- qeorge 16y agoI don't think that's quite fair. The parent simply offered up a possible explanation for what is by all accounts an irrational fear.
- philwelch 16y agoThat's fine if you take the word "homophobia" at face value, but it's become a politically overloaded term, and it's not right to accuse people of mental illness just because they disagree with you.
- sketerpot 16y agoWe need a better word for "anti-gay bigotry". Or, better yet, a set of such words which apply to common subsets of the LGBTQ alphabet-soup categorization. Right now all we have are words like homophobia and transphobia, which would do alright if only they didn't have the mental illness connotations.
- dejb 16y ago> I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia. From parents and close relatives it is easy to see a evolutionary reason. However from unrelated males (more common) it would seem that they would have every reason to encourage homosexuality in other males. Maybe it comes from when most people who lived together were related.
- Confusion 16y agoFrom parents and close relatives it is easy to see a evolutionary reason Which is not a rational reason. That would be the naturalistic fallacy.
- dejb 16y agoEncouraging the propagation your genes not rational? In evolutionary terms that is the the goal.
- angelbob 16y agoGeneralizing from a situation where it may apply (close relatives) to one where it does not apply isn't rational, even if it's a vaguely similar-looking situation.
- dejb 16y ago- The post I was replying wasn't about that part as far as I could tell. - The exact same reasoning has been applied to why we commit altruistic acts by richard dawkins (sorry no reference). The general idea is that certain behaviours are somewhat hard-coded and applying them to everyone was a good enough approximation for helping your close relatives in the past. - This is speculation. Generalisation is quite rational when speculating.
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoI can't see how it falls to the naturalistic fallacy ("that which is natural is good"). Surely a neo-darwinist sees the only goal of life as perpetuation of a specific genetic code. If an only off-spring chooses to take sexual partners that prevent the perpetuation of the parents genes beyond that offspring's generation then the parents genetic material will cease to be passed on. This is negative not because it is merely natural but because it destroys the only apparent purpose in such a system. I can see how you'd argue against such a position but I can't see how you can see it is not rational.
- pw0ncakes 16y agoHomophobia and misogyny are very strongly linked. The worst homophobes are usually misogynists as well. They believe that sexual desire is intractably imbued with domination and humiliation. On some level, they want to control and subjugate (and rape) women because of the immature and disturbing way they've processed their powerful sexual desires. The thought that a man might have such desire toward them terrifies them. Essentially, they're scared that a man might do to them (or want to do to them) what they want to be able to do to women. Obviously, this is ridiculous and irrational-- there's no epidemic of gay men raping other men, and straight men are overwhelmingly more likely to be raped by otherwise straight men than by gays-- but I think that's what is behind this rather absurd fear some men have of homosexuality.