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Indeed nature does not care. But the point of the parent comment, summarized in a single sentence as far as I understand it is "the issue of whether homosexuali

Indeed nature does not care. But the point of the parent comment, summarized in a single sentence as far as I understand it is "the issue of whether homosexuality is innately determined is irrelevant, policies and attitudes should be entirely unaffected by whether it is innately determined." Taken at face value that is a far stronger statement than "nature does not care about convenience." This is saying "in this instance, we should not care about the truth of nature. There is no policy value to be attained by finding out the truth of the matter." We certainly should not let convenience dictate our policies. That a statement happens to be convenient should not be why we accept its truth. But that's a different statement than the parent comment. All I'm trying to explain is why certain segments of the population would believe it valuable to figure out whether innateness is true or not. EDIT: > If this gets disproven, then what? There are significant policy repercussions if this were to be conclusively disproven (the unlikely extreme would be if it turned out that sexual orientation was entirely mutable given the right external situation). In education alone, arguments of whether certain curricula or environments "turn people gay" or "turn people straight" would take on a far more urgent tone for large swaths of the population. Could a local government mandate exposure to effective gay conversion therapy in a school environment (just exposure, not forcing a course of therapy)? Culturally whether conservative parents would allow their children to play with gay children or children from gay families would likewise take on an additional urgency. Many issues of policy have basically been decided on the assumption of "whether you like homosexuality or not, it's immutable so you may as well as treat it as if it were to stay," which is already controversial enough. If that's not true, then policy must grapple with the question of whether sexual orientation is an intrinsically valuable thing (and given that mainstream society is predominantly heterosexual, that would inevitably morph into whether homosexuality is an intrinsically valuable thing, since I suspect most people who identify as heterosexual value their own heterosexuality), which is an even more divisive topic in the U.S.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
> given that mainstream society is predominantly heterosexual, that would inevitably morph into whether homosexuality is an intrinsically valuable thing Society presently allows extreme leeway on providing value in every other way imaginable. We allow people to work in ad-tech for crying out loud. Ok, that was a bit of a joke, but the point is that society not only allows people to not contribute to the social good, it perniciously promotes people perpetuating palpable public harm for personal profit. Singling out sexuality on this particular front is patently perfidious. > since I suspect most people who identify as heterosexual value their own heterosexuality You may be correct about the percentage of people with this particular value, but I think it would be because of something other than mainstream predominance. I think it's more likely that "value" is an inapt word and that most people just don't ever imagine any alternative as being realistic given their...uhh...predicament.
- dwohnitmok 6y ago
  > Singling out sexuality on this particular front is patently perfidious. Perfidious it may be, but the question of innateness has very real policy effects. The best comparison is probably religion. Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Should they be allowed to send their children to conversion therapy camps? Perhaps therapy is too coercive, but what about something less coercive, but more effective? If it is innate then conversion therapy can be easily banned on grounds of inefficacy and therefore active harm. If sexual orientation is entirely mutable then the question shifts altogether. > I think it's more likely that "value" is an inapt word I very intentionally chose "value" because I think many members of the homosexual community value homosexuality in the same way that I think many members of the heterosexual community value heterosexuality. This is the whole point of why "pride" is more than just a simple slogan. Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I think an illuminating example is the Deaf community's attitude towards cochlear implants, where large swaths of the community actively reject cochlear implants and value their own Deafness as an intrinsic attribute to be celebrated on its own. Indeed among members of that community there is a tendency to try to value Deafness as an immutable attribute and to shun attempts to make it mutable (it is extremely controversial for parents to outfit children with cochlear implants, even were these cochlear implants to perfectly replicate normal hearing and for people born Deaf segments of the community view it as a sort of betrayal for them to attempt to use cochlear implants). The question of mutability remains an important one that has many implications.
  - BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
    > Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Society's desire to bend itself backward to accommodate religious sectarian meme indoctrination is a huge moral blind spot. I don't think many communities are able to honestly discuss consent as applied to religious obedience and obeisance. That doesn't mean we should consider it a moral standard. > Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. It's not the sexuality that has value. The value is in not being the subject of a lie constructed to mask arbitrary oppression because of a religious meme. > If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I think we can turn this on its head to make it more apt to demonstrate why this reasoning doesn't work for me. Heterosexual people don't form communities for themselves on the basis of heteroidentification (I mean, some definitely do, but it's also definitely an extreme minority). There are communities and there are LGBTQ-oriented communities and there are even (we should acknowledge) straight-exclusionary communities, but we might rightly look askance at anyone who desires LGBTQ-exclusionary communities. So then we have to ask ourselves why, and we can look to your broccoli example... Maybe you enjoy eating broccoli. Let's say you do. For the sake of argument, let's also say that while you like broccoli you don't identify yourself as "a broccoli person". Like...when you're at parties and people ask you what things you enjoy, you don't even mention broccoli. Then someone comes along and says "everyone who enjoys broccoli has to die". That's you. You're the person who they want to die. Now you care about the broccoli situation, but you care about not being oppressed and you care about solidarity and support, not about broccoli. In that environment you will form bonds with other broccoli eaters, not because of the broccoli, but because oppression forges bonds among the oppressed. Now non-broccoli-eaters, on the other hand, don't have to spend their lives in fear that someone will beat them up or kill them for enjoying broccoli (because they don't), which means that broccoli isn't on their minds. Like basically ever. At best you could say that once in a while a non-broccoli-eater might be relieved that they aren't in the difficult position of someone wanting them dead because of what they like eating. The bonds of identification are a consequence of the oppression, not of the broccoli. Broccoli is just the point of intersection.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago

> given that mainstream society is predominantly heterosexual, that would inevitably morph into whether homosexuality is an intrinsically valuable thing Society presently allows extreme leeway on providing value in every other way imaginable. We allow people to work in ad-tech for crying out loud. Ok, that was a bit of a joke, but the point is that society not only allows people to not contribute to the social good, it perniciously promotes people perpetuating palpable public harm for personal profit. Singling out sexuality on this particular front is patently perfidious. > since I suspect most people who identify as heterosexual value their own heterosexuality You may be correct about the percentage of people with this particular value, but I think it would be because of something other than mainstream predominance. I think it's more likely that "value" is an inapt word and that most people just don't ever imagine any alternative as being realistic given their...uhh...predicament.

dwohnitmok 6y ago
> Singling out sexuality on this particular front is patently perfidious. Perfidious it may be, but the question of innateness has very real policy effects. The best comparison is probably religion. Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Should they be allowed to send their children to conversion therapy camps? Perhaps therapy is too coercive, but what about something less coercive, but more effective? If it is innate then conversion therapy can be easily banned on grounds of inefficacy and therefore active harm. If sexual orientation is entirely mutable then the question shifts altogether. > I think it's more likely that "value" is an inapt word I very intentionally chose "value" because I think many members of the homosexual community value homosexuality in the same way that I think many members of the heterosexual community value heterosexuality. This is the whole point of why "pride" is more than just a simple slogan. Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I think an illuminating example is the Deaf community's attitude towards cochlear implants, where large swaths of the community actively reject cochlear implants and value their own Deafness as an intrinsic attribute to be celebrated on its own. Indeed among members of that community there is a tendency to try to value Deafness as an immutable attribute and to shun attempts to make it mutable (it is extremely controversial for parents to outfit children with cochlear implants, even were these cochlear implants to perfectly replicate normal hearing and for people born Deaf segments of the community view it as a sort of betrayal for them to attempt to use cochlear implants). The question of mutability remains an important one that has many implications.
- BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
  > Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Society's desire to bend itself backward to accommodate religious sectarian meme indoctrination is a huge moral blind spot. I don't think many communities are able to honestly discuss consent as applied to religious obedience and obeisance. That doesn't mean we should consider it a moral standard. > Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. It's not the sexuality that has value. The value is in not being the subject of a lie constructed to mask arbitrary oppression because of a religious meme. > If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I think we can turn this on its head to make it more apt to demonstrate why this reasoning doesn't work for me. Heterosexual people don't form communities for themselves on the basis of heteroidentification (I mean, some definitely do, but it's also definitely an extreme minority). There are communities and there are LGBTQ-oriented communities and there are even (we should acknowledge) straight-exclusionary communities, but we might rightly look askance at anyone who desires LGBTQ-exclusionary communities. So then we have to ask ourselves why, and we can look to your broccoli example... Maybe you enjoy eating broccoli. Let's say you do. For the sake of argument, let's also say that while you like broccoli you don't identify yourself as "a broccoli person". Like...when you're at parties and people ask you what things you enjoy, you don't even mention broccoli. Then someone comes along and says "everyone who enjoys broccoli has to die". That's you. You're the person who they want to die. Now you care about the broccoli situation, but you care about not being oppressed and you care about solidarity and support, not about broccoli. In that environment you will form bonds with other broccoli eaters, not because of the broccoli, but because oppression forges bonds among the oppressed. Now non-broccoli-eaters, on the other hand, don't have to spend their lives in fear that someone will beat them up or kill them for enjoying broccoli (because they don't), which means that broccoli isn't on their minds. Like basically ever. At best you could say that once in a while a non-broccoli-eater might be relieved that they aren't in the difficult position of someone wanting them dead because of what they like eating. The bonds of identification are a consequence of the oppression, not of the broccoli. Broccoli is just the point of intersection.