I love how /. is now full of censorious assholes instead of just regular assholes.

I said "European nations" and you're talking about New Zealand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. I don't think any of those are in Europe.

New Zealand is a tiny island that sealed its borders. Combodia and Vietnam are full of asians, and it doesn't seem like it affects them nearly so badly as it affects Europeans and Africans. It seems particularly bad for the morbidly obese and African-Americans, which America has lots of and New Zealand, Cambodia, and Vietnam do not.

The US did...fine. Except for New York. I think you just want to make it sound way worse than it is for political reasons.

These shutdowns wouldn't be necessary if President Super Spreader had just listened to the people that were telling him this was coming.

Did all of the European nations also have failing leaders who ignored science? We're doing about the same as they are (better when you correct for the propensity for Americans to be obese), so unless everyone was as incompetent as the US, it doesn't seem like political leadership matters that much.

Uh, probably still better off than we would with more criminals, drug addicts, and the indolent?

Population is leveling out or negative everywhere except Africa. Unless you're telling this to Africans you're preaching to the choir.

Maybe, but I'd prefer if the people opting out weren't the rare sorts of people who can do the kind of work done at tech firms. Maybe encourage those types to have more kids, and the types who live off public assistance to not have so many?

I never said being gay was a choice, so you're arguing with a strawman. I don't think it is. I agree with everything you said there.

If your kid grows up is gay then that has zero to do with how you've raised them or whatever.

You don't know this, because science currently does not know the cause of homosexuality. You're stating a thing as fact that you do not know to be true. It's something said by gay political actors, though. As I see it there are four possible causes of homosexuality: genetics, (uterine?) hormone exposure, socialization, or choice. Scientists have looked for a gay gene for decades now and not found it, so I think we can fairly well rule out genetics. There do seem to be some hormonal differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, so that could have something to do with it, but it's hard to say. Perhaps the hormones are the results rather than the cause of homosexual behavior. More research is needed, but I wonder then if HRT could be used to turn gays straight or vice-versa. I agree with you it's not choice, for largely the reasons you stated.

That leaves social conditioning. This seems pretty likely to me as we have examples of gay cultures, like ancient greeks or modern Afghans, and no reason to think they're any more biologically gay than anyone else. US soldiers in Afghanistan had to just get used to the "culture" of Afghan soldiers taking bacha bazi boys into their tents at night to rape them. Why did they do that? Do you think it was biological, or do you think maybe it had something to do with the way they were raised? Perhaps the adult Afghan men take boys into their tents to rape because when they were boys, adults took them into their tents to rape them.

Do you agree then that social conditioning is a likely cause of homosexuality, or homosexual behavior? If not, I'd really like to know your explanation for the Afghans. If it is so that social conditioning matters, doesn't that mean the way you raise your kids definitely doesn't have "zero" to do with whether or not they turn out to be gay? Might even have quite a bit to do with it if the Afghans are any example.

Also, I think you'll find the vast majority of homo child abusers are priests and sports coaches.

Yes, gay priests and gay sports coaches. I'm not sure what your points is.

Teach him about consent. Easy as that.

Is it, though? Children and boys are rarely forcibly raped. They're seduced by predators. For instance, since we're talking about Star Trek (or were), George Takei says his introduction to homosexuality was when he was 13, and his 19 year old camp counselor raped him. George insists it wasn't rape, though. He "consented" because the counselor was "hot." Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos said the same thing about his rape at 12 by a Catholic priest. It was okay because he was "ready." They both "consented," so I'm not sure how you think teaching them about consent is going to prevent rape. It seems more likely to help facilitate it, as opposed to simply telling them "this activity is wrong, if a man wants to touch your privates or for you to touch his, say no, run away, and tell me or the police."

It seems that grooming works by 1) convincing boys this activity is normal, natural or good, 2) convincing them they can consent to it, 3) convincing them they should consent to it, and then 4) abusing them. You're doing parts 1 & 2 for them.

Then the cycle of abuse starts. When they get to be adults, they do the same to the next generation of children, just like the Afghans and the bacha bazi. I wonder if George and Milo would have identified as gay as adults if they hadn't been abused as children. I think there should be more research into the topic, but I would not be very shocked if such research efforts were shouted down by gay political actors. They seem to be very insistent about people believing the sorts of things you believe about the causes of homosexuality (despite the lack of evidence they are true), and that people raise their children like you're raising yours, even though it doesn't seem particularly useful to your son. Quite useful to homosexuals who want to have sex with young boys, though. Seems to be working, as less than half of teenagers identify as straight since people started teaching their children what you're teaching your son. You'll notice the tone of the article doesn't seem surprised. You'd think if, as you said, the way a child is raised has nothing to do with his sexual identification, there should be no difference in how teenagers raised to believe homosexuality is normal and natural identify. The gay authors of the article seem positively overjoyed at the results. Are you?

seemingly not a natural thing

Well, it's not. You can tell because it's rare, and doesn't reproduce.

gays are somehow all child rapists.

No, but they're vastly overrepresented in the population of child rapists. Something like 90% of child sex abusers are male, 2.5% of the population is gay men, yet 25-40% of child sex abuse victims are male. Hmmm. Certainly all gays are not pedophiles, but gay men are vastly, vastly more likely to be offending pedophiles than straight men.

Knowing gays are a thing does not grooming make.

No, but combine knowing they're a thing with your approval it does. The first thing a predator dealing with a non-groomed child has to do is convince them this seemingly unnatural thing is actually natural, and you're doing that job for them. This is a terrible idea, and you owe your son better. But hey, if you looked out for your son's best interests instead of the political agenda of homosexuals, people on the internet might think you're mean, and obviously the opinion of homosexuals and internet strangers are more important than your son's welfare.

Well, rapists tend to be men, yes, so because your daughter has a problem, you want to give your son that problem, too? If your daughter breaks her leg, do you break your son's leg too so it's fair? It sounds like you're pre-grooming your son for predators. Wouldn't be my choice but you do you.

I thought his argument was about preferences not abilities. I could be mistaken, it's been a long time since I read it, but I thought his argument was that there weren't more women in programming because proportionally fewer women were interested in programming than men.

Jazdia was female (and how!) but Dax was genderless, and given Sisko's preference for referring to her as "old man" I'd say she counts as non-binary. Whatever Jazdia Dax is, it's neither exactly male nor exactly female.

why are you watching Star Trek of all things in the first place?

Because they used to also have stories about science, and moral dilemmas. Now it's "look at all the gays and trannies and strong wymynz what don't need no man in space!" and some explosions and punching. But there's none of the science in the fiction. I'll pass.

It impacts your kids, though. The TV says "this is all normal and natural!" and then when your son is 14 and confused and Kevin Spacey tries to rape him he says "but don't you know this is all normal and natural?"

Later in TNG you had guys in skirts for the first season or two...

Did they? I remember Troi wearing the skirt for a while, but I don't remember any men wearing them.

I get what they were trying to do but it was better when they just retired the skirt uniforms entirely.

Hard disagree. Teenage me liked the skirt uniforms very much. Adult me doesn't think they're so bad either.

My complaint with Rey wasn't that she was a woman, but that she had no motivation to go on the adventure to fight the space nazis. Luke has 5 explicitly stated motivations to go on the adventure: 1) he hates Tatooine, (planet farthest from the bright center of the galaxy), 2) he's interested in space politics ("you know of the rebellion against the empire?!"), 3) he wants to fly military ships (tells Owen and Beru he wants to "join the academy"), 4) he wants to bang his sister, 5) he wants to learn the ways of the force and learn more about his father. So when Obi-Wan says "you should come with me to Alderaan" his choice makes sense.

The only thing Rey ever expresses is her desire to stay on Jakku and wait for her parents. So when she rescues Finn and hears about the mission to get the droid back to the Resistance, she should say "oh, great, you take the robot I'mma go wait for my fam." Since she has no reason to go on the adventure, J.J. has the bad guys attack, forcing her into the next scene. Repeat when they get away and are safe with Han. She would go back to the planet and let Finn and Han go on with the droid if given the chance to choose, so J.J. has the gangsters attack.

She never gives any indication that she cares about space politics, or fighting, or the force. Nothing but her parents, and nothing she's doing has anything to do with her parents. She's doing the Star Wars stuff because she's in a Star Wars movie. It's bland and boring.