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Children lose the right to have fathers

…Well, only in the UK, for the time being. But there’s always hope that our legislators and justices will look abroad to find out what the sophisticates are doing and, in a perverse reversal of the impetus for founding this country, seek the approbation of their English betters.

After all, what good is having a “Living Constitution” if it can’t vacation over seas now and then, and bring back a few delightful decorating ideas?

Between this vote, and the California court ruling that has turned “orientation” into an immutable disability deserving of special dispensation from the state, Western progressivism — with its incestuous ties to identity politics and dangerous multicultural dogma — is threatening to undermine both biology and social will, and then to fortify that deconstruction of the traditional nuclear family by way of consequences ranging from libel suits to jail time for those who don’t fall in line with the new engineering plans.

All, naturally, in the name of tolerance.

As a commenter in the UK thread asked:

Either children need fathers or they don’t.

If children do not need fathers, then why should any man stick around once his partner becomes pregnant?

If a faithful husband and loving father is suddenly expected to accept that fatherhood is ‘officially’ a worthless and redundant role, then why should he be continue to be faithful and responsible?

If these un-necessary fathers then abandon their wives and children they are branded irresponsible and pursued by the State and the Courts.

What extraordinary logical contortion allows a government to legislate to achieve two opposite outcomes?

Feh. “Logic” is a patriarchal construct that protects the status quo. Bending the rule of law by sheer will — now that’s progress!

(h/t Nancy Morgan)

199 Replies to “Children lose the right to have fathers”

  1. Yuri Geller was a fake, right? Mind you, all he ever did was break spoons.

  2. nishizonoshinji says:

    Expect to see more of this as science and technology remove the tyranny of biological imperative from homosapiens sapiens.
    The “nuclear family” is just a hangover from the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Advantage).
    Exactly like supernatural belief systems, a.k.a. religion.
    ;)

  3. JHoward says:

    Look abroad, hell Jeff, we actually export this shit. Read the International Violence Against Women Act, first the ideology of a “feminism” similar to this, now the cause of a wreckage of Indian life, among others, that has to be beheld to be believed.

    As far as two opposite outcomes, as if it needed saying, look to only so far as welfare reform — for the presumed fiscal benefits, natch — to find that the costs of parenting-by-State now cost many billions more a year than had we done nothing (about the problem of people having children.)

    Ah, liberalism. The strictest application of the strictest fascism.

  4. Jeff G. says:

    Right, nishi. If you say so. And if evolution doesn’t move us past the “superstition” that is the nuclear family’s advantages (toss out the supporting data, by the way — there’s an “evolutionary lag time” that needs to be accounted for, you see) quickly enough, we can always count on a few enlightened folk in powdered wigs to speed along the process.

  5. scooter (not libby) says:

    People are strange – almost quantum in their unpredictability.

    Take male child A, raised in a family with no father, that grows up and concludes that fathers are unnecessary and as a result sees no need to make a commitment to his potential children or their mother.

    Then consider male child B, raised in a family with no father, that grows with a keen sense of the missing part of his upbringing, who concludes that he will never leave his children fatherless assuming he has a say in the matter.

    Sadly, I’ve seen evidence of the first, and lived evidence of the 2nd. I just don’t understand how a fatherless boy can conclude that there was nothing lacking in his childhood, and conclude that his kids won’t miss him.

  6. Evil McGehee says:

    What extraordinary logical contortion allows a government to legislate to achieve two opposite outcomes?

    See comment #2.

  7. JHoward says:

    And the hard, routine, statistical, cited, “scientific” fact that single parenting churns out the great majority of dysfunction children escapes nuggie-san. Because of the gross dishonesty.

  8. CassarahW says:

    NIshi, You have me there. I don’t want that brave new world with reproduction divorced in body and spirit from the old fashioned ways. Not too long before mothers are redundant, too.

  9. Jeff G. says:

    Once the state automates, we can have children raised by computer chips.

    Hell, why even have children? Just make young computer chips.

    THE SINGULARITY IS APPROACHING! CALL IT PROGRESS AND SMOKE ‘EM WHILE YOU GOT ‘EM!

  10. Evil McGehee says:

    People are strange — almost quantum in their unpredictability.

    That’s why it’s easier to predict the motion of cultures and civilizations, than individuals.

    Except of course that whatever motion may be observed in an individual, it remains embedded in its culture, and will almost invariably go where the culture goes. Because quantum behavior doesn’t scale.

    Nishi has never grasped this; she has been predicting the movement of American culture based on the motion of individuals under her direct observation, and dismissing the rest of our civilization as moties and two-digits.

  11. Dan Collins says:

    Children need fathers? How quaint!

  12. MarkD says:

    Judges better hope people stop reading the Declaration of Independence.

    This doesn’t affect me, directly, at all. I do find myself wondering how much people will put up with. Slavery was outlawed. Taking most or all of your money and telling you what you can and can’t do with your property and your family was not. When does the distinction cease to matter?

  13. “orientation”

    Excuse me? That’s Asiantation to you round-eye.

  14. apotheosis says:

    Imagine there’s no nishi.
    It’s easy if you try.

  15. Pablo says:

    Mother was an incubator
    Father was the contents
    of a test tube in the ice box
    In the factory of birth

    My name is 905,
    And I’ve just become alive
    I’m the newest populator
    Of the planet we call Earth

  16. Karl says:

    Jeff,

    The “consequences” link just links back to this post.

  17. Salt Lick says:

    I don’t see the problem. Something like 70% of all African-American births are out of wedlock and black males in that community are doing fine.

  18. Karl says:

    Exactly like supernatural belief systems, a.k.a. religion.

    like sufism
    fun with the dhikr
    lulz

  19. JD says:

    LMC – Someone called Better Half and Madeline “oriental” last week. They barely survived.

  20. Sean M. says:

    Once the state automates, we can have children raised by computer chips.

    And we all know how badly that turns out. Seriously.

  21. happyfeet says:

    I guess I need to read what nishi says cause I have this feeling in my head that I’m gonna agree with her. Expect to see more of this as science and technology remove the tyranny of biological imperative from homosapiens sapiens. Sorta kinda yeah I think that’s right. There are plenty of single moms and I don’t really see the harm in letting British lesbians and such have a slice of that pie. I’d even be willing to bet that on balance their kids being planned for and all will turn out better than kids whose moms are trashy single low-rent British hoochies whose baby daddy done run off. It’s just a guess. But anyway British lesbians or really any lesbians what want to get insperminated aren’t really any of my business I don’t think. It’s not super-hard to do this sort of thing without a clinic, but there’s something to be said for telling British lesbian wannabe mommies to go to a clinic as opposed to tricking some poor bloke into having to pay child support for some kid she just used him to make. That would suck being him.

  22. Lesley says:

    My husband died of cancer when my children were 11, 9, and 5 years old. It will haunt me until my dying day to remember my little ones, the day after Christmas, standing huddled together in the library of our home, watching with stricken faces as their father was carried down the stairs and out of the house by EMT’s to a waiting ambulance. It was their last glimpse of him: emaciated, ashen faced, and struggling for breath. He died on the way to the hospital. They mourn him still.

    While we were well provided for financially, it has been an extremely difficult proposition to raise three children alone. I can only be their mother, I cannot be their father, and children need and deserve both. My husband took them hunting and fishing, he sang little songs to them on the way to school, the first two weekends in May were always reserved for his special picnics and the search for Morel mushrooms, he’d taught the older two to play blackjack and cribbage, and would dance our daughter around the room every Saturday night while watching Lawrence Welk. I could go on and on.

    Men and women parent differently but both types of parenting are essential to the development of healthy individuals. I can’t tell you how many times I “talked” to my husband during the boys’ meathead, teenage years, knowing that a mere stern look or word from him would have ended their assiness IMMEDIATELY. As you might have guessed, a stern look or word from me didn’t have the same effect.

    My children hang on to those memories of a loving father in order to keep him “alive” and a vital part of our lives. Thank God they have those memories.

    Our family experience speaks directly to the importance of fathers. Don’t try to tell me or my kids that not having a dad is no big deal. Why any woman would willingly bring children into the world without the active presence of a husband/father is beyond my ability to understand. To my way of thinking, its a form of child abuse.

  23. Jeff G. says:

    Tyranny of biological imperative.

    Such hubris, that.

  24. nishizonoshinji says:

    Cassarah
    Not too long before mothers are redundant, too.
    ectogenisis

  25. Slartibartfast says:

    Can’t even spell something right, when it’s spelled right in the link. Pathetic.

  26. nishizonoshinji says:

    Such hubris, that.

    Hey! ima transhumanist, remember?
    We are the revolutionaries, guerrilleros fighting the selfish genes.
    The nuclear family is the best cultural compromise between two incompatible biological imperatives–
    XY sperm broadcasters, programmed to spread the DNA far and wide, and the XX offspring nuturers, programmed to lock down a provider to raise offspring.
    Nonsense that an XX can’t assume the “father role”. Might as well argue that XX can’t be doctors or lawyers…or…
    mathemeticians.
    haha

    Karl, what you don’t seem to get is that I unnerstand exactly why I believe, and I accept it.
    Also, yours is better for you, mine is better for me, membah?

  27. JHoward says:

    ectogenisis

    You may want to spell it right.

    Since the title of the post includes the word “right”, at what point does the national conversation turn back to the right to have both parents and to the right not to be thrown out on the street as a parent. Sure, rights are imposed and not transcendent, but in both of those cases the State adopts an imperative that harms someone who trusted it for the protection of enumerated or otherwise accorded rights. (Yes, there are scores of SC decision supporting parenting as a fundamental right, nuggie-san.)

    Screw “biological imperatives”. Force rights back into existence.

  28. nishizonoshinji says:

    ectogenesis, sowwy Slart.

    Polygamy is alternate form of cultural compromise that was a successful model for a long time.
    Actually, until recently (FLDS) polygamy was a very successful model for the sperm broadcasters, incorporating massive amounts of progeny, compensation from the state via welfare fraud for said progeny, and sex with underage children.

  29. JD says:

    The nuclear family is the best cultural compromise. Yeah, biology has nothing to do with it.

    Lesley – That was moving. Truly so.

  30. happyfeet says:

    Mostly it’s the expect to see more of this part I agree with. Lots of new thinking and biotech sort of things out there. People are gonna need to play around and see what works.

  31. happyfeet says:

    British lesbians, you go first. I’ll be over here.

  32. JD says:

    The nishit-bot is a constant feedback loop, insofar as it ignores all feedback, and proceeds directly ahead with its handful of topics.

  33. happyfeet says:

    Also, fatherhood is a lot overrated in a society where they a lot neuter their males I think. Think about calling Prince Charles “Dad”.

  34. JD says:

    British lesbians – That is a great phrase. Especially when you picture Saffron Burrows and Amanda Peet playing them in the Skinemax movie.

  35. nishizonoshinji says:

    Look Jeff, in the macro sense (not the micro) culture doesn’t shape society.
    Society shapes culture according to its needs.

    Once upon a time slavery was SOP, miscengenation was outlawed, and the XX couldn’t own property.
    Times change.

  36. Dan Collins says:

    I don’t poop anymore. Mind over matter, you know.

  37. Karl says:

    I unnerstand exactly why I believe, and I accept it.

    sure you do
    lulz

  38. Karl says:

    Dan,

    There is somebody in this thread who shows signs of not having pooped in a long time, but it ain’t you.

  39. I don’t know why the traditional nuclear family works, but I know that it generally does work. So I’m not inclined to tinker with it. That may be tyranny, but it’s tyranny to the extent that reality’s a tyranny. Would that you could say “Reality myReality = new HeatherHasTwoMommiesReality();” and have it all work. Unfortunately, you can’t.

    In an earlier post there was a mention that most African-American births take place out of wedlock, and that African-American men are doing just fine. I don’t see it. Something like 50% of African-American men have criminal records. Instapundit had a recent article about failing African-American students at Norfolk State University. The Google search string ‘+”african-american” +male +”social pathology”‘ gives me 67,000 links, and none of the summaries look good.

  40. Jeff G. says:

    Nonsense that an XX can’t assume the “father role”. Might as well argue that XX can’t be doctors or lawyers…or…
    mathemeticians.
    haha

    I never said they “couldn’t” — only questioned why they’d need to, when that father role is already potentially ably played by, you know, fathers.

    It’s one thing to fight the selfish gene on principle, another to fight it just because you can. Me, I don’t see it as biological tyranny, but rather biological description. And no, I don’t think we should be angling to “cure” the “quaintness” of the nuclear family through science as if it were some sort of cancer. Can we move beyond the necessity of the male/female dynamic in birth and raising of families? Certainly.

    The question is, should we, as a matter of course.

    Of course, it’s an easy transition from seeing an unborn child (up to 24 weeks in the UK) as not having any kind of value beyond a clumping of cells with a human potentiality, to the idea that that potentiality doesn’t have any concern about who raises it, again, as a matter of course (rather than circumstance).

    For whatever reason, nishi, you seem to think it edgy to reduce every question down to some sort of crass materialist component. What you never seem to factor in as legitimate is the desire of those who wish to respect the “tyranny of biological imperatives,” not because they are superstitious, but because they believe some biological imperatives are hardwired in as the best course to take in certain circumstances.

    Your dismissal of those people as some how intellectually inferior to those who are itching to build new paradigms because they can is, at best, disingenuous.

  41. Dan Collins says:

    Patrick, I think that was said, y’know, ironically.

  42. JHoward says:

    Society shapes culture according to its needs.

    Society shapes culture according to its myths. Refusing that, accordingly you shape threads according to, um, its psychosis.

  43. BJTexs says:

    Ah, yes, more nishi:

    Pencil line thin range of topics, brutishly applied to any comment thread regardless of utility or interest.

    Wash, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. repeat, repeat, rep…

    ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  44. Pablo says:

    To further Patrick’s point, we recently learned that Detroit is graduating 24% of it’s high school students.

  45. Jeff G. says:

    Now I have to go work out. Until science invents a reliable pill to keep my weight down and my muscles toned that doesn’t involve my balls shriveling up.

    There’s a project for you, Nishi. GET CRACKIN’!

  46. scooter (not libby) says:

    Patrick – I think I detected sarcasm in Salt Lick’s post re. “they’re doing just fine.” I believe they (the AfAm community) even recognize that there is a problem (too much violence, incarceration, drug use) but the the real question is, who do you blame? We know how different people answer that question.

  47. JD says:

    I didn’t poop for 3 days once, and it required much Ex-Lax and a colonic to fix it. Not recommended …

  48. scooter (not libby) says:

    And once you’ve handed off the blame, how do you fix it? Seems to be a struggle between “increased state largess” vs. “increased accountability and responsibilty”.

  49. happyfeet says:

    Well a lot you can overthink this sort of thing. Prince Charles is probably a good intellectual proxy for thinking about British lesbians though. His kids turned out ok. Meaning that they dress very well.

  50. Pablo says:

    Your dismissal of those people as some how intellectually inferior to those who are itching to build new paradigms because they can is, at best, disingenuous.

    Not to mention a childish display of grossly unwarranted arrogance.

  51. Karl says:

    As Linda Kimball put it:

    Separately, two Marxist theorists-Antonio Gramsci of Italy and Georg Lukacs of Hungary-concluded that the Christianized West was the obstacle standing in the way of a communist new world order. The West would have to be conquered first.

    Gramsci posited that because Christianity had been dominant in the West for over 2000 years, not only was it fused with Western civilization, but it had corrupted the workers class. The West would have to be de-Christianized, said Gramsci, by means of a “long march through the culture.” Additionally, a new proletariat must be created. In his “Prison Notebooks,” he suggested that the new proletariat be comprised of many criminals, women, and racial minorities.

    The new battleground, reasoned Gramsci, must become the culture, starting with the traditional family and completely engulfing churches, schools, media, entertainment, civic organizations, literature, science, and history. All of these things must be radically transformed and the social and cultural order gradually turned upside-down with the new proletariat placed in power at the top.

    Oddly enough, I noticed from my high school sociology class that it was pretty much SOP for the Left to expand the sphere of government by undermining or taking over all other societal institutions (marriage, family, religion, education, healthcare, etc.). And that was before I ever heard of Gramsci.

  52. scooter (not libby) says:

    And just to get firmly back on-topic: some really smart people thought they could come up with a purely rational socio-economic model, and look at how that worked out.

    Applying pure “reason” to deconstruct/replace the traditional nuclear family in society will be similarly successful. But don’t take my word for it.

  53. nishizonoshinji says:

    only questioned why they’d need to

    because they want to.
    in a libertarian society that is their choice.

    when that father role is already potentially ably played by, you know, fathers.

    just as the doctor role was already ably played by, you know, doctors.
    just as [insert maledominated profession here] was already ably played by, you know, [insert maledominated profession here].

  54. Jeff G. says:

    KEEP YOUR INVISIBLE HAND OFF MY UTERUS!

  55. nishizonoshinji says:

    the legislation discussed is reactive, not active.
    there are already two-mommie-families.
    society enacts, culture reacts.

  56. Gray says:

    Darth Vader didn’t have any father and he turned out fine.

    Just sayin’….

  57. nishizonoshinji says:

    scooter, the nuclear family is being re-engineered by the evolution of culture, not by nazis or marxists.

  58. Pablo says:

    Wrong, Socialists are hip deep in the remaking, or should I say dismantling, of the family.

  59. CassarahW says:

    “Either children need fathers or they don’t.”

    There is a third way, which is “Fathers or male role models are ideal, and better than not having one, but to be alive is better than to not be alive, and fathers are not that, without which there is nothing. After all, widows and abandoned wives and harlots have children and some are raised to do well.

    If one argues fathers are necessary in necesary or not dichotomy as propsed, then children should be taken from all single mothers and placed out with a mother and father figure. That the absurd extreme of that proposition.

    But there is something to be said for not HELPING to create fatherless children.

    No doubt Lesbians may be caring parents and steady parents, if even they fall short of ideal parents and in creating ideal homes. But I can not imagine why it is necessary to support this choice with MONEY. Taken from other PEOPLE, who don’t have an immediate biological connection to the child.

    As far as the lesbian-duped sperm donor and it sucking to be him, it’s odd that forever England is volunteering, essentially, to be him. “We will pay for your insemination and all that comes from that and be your babydaddy.” “Sucking to be him” is a great reason, a powerful incentive, for a man to be discriminate about who he inseminates, when he has many biological features that would otherwise urge him to spread his seed without caring much where it lands.

    Men, unless there is simultaneously a stiff price to pay and many benefits to be had from fatherhood, will be sperm donors everywhere and father to none. Its sexist to say so but sexual incontinence is more common in men, as they don’t lay out quite the physical risks and expenditures pregnancy and suckling infants that women do, and law and custom help constrain the tendency to be promiscuous.

  60. scooter (not libby) says:

    Is Judicial activism “evolution of culture”? I think of it more as good old-fashioned tyranny. Rule by an elite. Which, come to think of it, is what you seem to advocate.

  61. nishizonoshinji says:

    Sheesh, think about it Jeff.
    the invention of birth control essentially fragged the nuclear family.
    And it has been eroding ever since.

  62. Carin -BONC says:

    In another landmark decision last night, MPs rejected moves to prevent women having abortions up to 24 weeks into pregnancy. In the first vote on the issue in 18 years, an attempt to reduce the limit to 22 weeks was rejected by 71 votes. An attempt to reduce the limit to 20 weeks was defeated by a majority of 142.

    I’ve got an idea – why don’t they take those 24-week-gestated unwanted babies, and give them to the lesbians? Remove the middleman turkey baster. I see this as nothing but a win-win.

  63. Jeff G. says:

    “Father” is a male dominated role because fathers are male. That’s biology, not discrimination. Whereas there is no biological imperative that a doctor be male.

    As for the libertarian argument as it pertains to the legislative ruling, I’ll let you figure out who gets to pick up the tab in the long run (and why using state money to support such an imperative in the short run is, too, antithetical). Again, I’m not saying women shouldn’t be able to have children without a father (though I think it unwise, in many cases); but I think it improper to legislate out of existence what is in the best interests of the child, and this ruling makes fathers virtually disposable as a matter of law. And they get to pay for the privilege!

  64. scooter (not libby) says:

    Ah, but see even lesbians have this irrational need to pass their genes on to the next generation. Tyranny of Biology or whatever (too lazy to scroll backwards).

  65. SarahW says:

    I’m sorry for all those typos. It’s a bad vitreous humor day.

  66. Dan Collins says:

    What’s this Tranny of Biology?

  67. Jeff G. says:

    All this evolution of culture stuff — the way Nishi uses it, at least — is so very Hegelian.

  68. Jeff G. says:

    Now, really. Must go workout. Keep that maleness thing going while its still en vogue.

  69. LionDude says:

    No, Nish.

    The nuclear family is being re-engineered by judges who would like to “evolve” (?) the culture at a speed only to their liking, whether the “culture” wants it or not.

  70. LionDude says:

    Man, either I’m really slow or you guys are really fast. Sorry for the redundancy.

  71. nishizonoshinji says:

    well, Jeff we can actually do ovum recombination with parthenogenesis now, since Johns Hopkins solved the mammalian DNA imprinting problem a few years back…..
    that means the XX can take on the biological role of the father, as donor of 1/2 the genome.
    when the j-womb is ready, the XY can be ectogenetic mothers with the aid of a donor egg.

    Whatchu gonna do about it, big guy?

  72. Enoch_Root - BONC also says:

    I have theorized before: Nishi is just trying to piss her daddy off. Now, I am thinking Nishi is trying to piss daddy off.

  73. Gray says:

    the nuclear family is being re-engineered by the evolution of culture, not by nazis or marxists.

    But that’s exactly what the nazis and marxists always said.

    Irony…. In…. my…. braaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnnnn!

  74. nishizonoshinji says:

    vitreous humor
    haw!

    that works on so many levels.

  75. I apologize for missing the irony. I do quick scans of the comments in between whips of the lash. (We’re on a death march here. Don’t tell management, but we’re going to miss the ship date.) So, you know, lossy medium.

  76. LionDude says:

    Something I posted on Darleen Click’s previous same-sex “coyness” discussion that, in my self-delusionment, might be worth re-posting here?:
    >
    Bergerbuilder touches on a good point. When it comes to adoption, is it now illegal to say that the ideal home in which to raise a child is with a present mother and a father? Yes, I realize it doesn’t always work out this way, in that there are single mothers or fathers who do just fine, but I’m referring to what is now considered the IDEAL situation.

    If the state historically has had an interest in marriage as providing legitimacy for raising children, then how will the expanded definition of marriage affect child adoption preferences? Unless someone can provide a link or reference, I don’t believe there is any study that shows being raised by same-sex parents is no different than with a mother and a father in the household. This study would take decades to complete with so many variables it would make quantum physicists blush. Hence, has the expanded definition of marriage by the state now essentially sanctioned an unknown social experiment with children being the guinea pigs?

    Just asking.
    >

  77. Jeff G. says:

    Whatchu gonna do about it, big guy?

    Uh, commission me an army of hermaphrodites and take over the world?

    Again, just because science can do something doesn’t mean a thing to me. Biology and evolution have given us a father, and without the aid of Johns Hopkins, ovum recombination and parthenogenesis, etc.

    Even were the mother to become both biological mother AND biological father (and good luck with that — for Lysistrataland, I’m happy to donate say, Patterson, NJ), there’s still be the problem of socializing without the male influence.

    Unless, that is, Johns Hopkins fixes that “problem,” too — through its women’s studies department, most probably.

  78. Sdferr says:

    May I ask, is it possible under the current state of the art to produce a child without a father, that is to say, without at least using a sperm either in the case of natural conception or in artificial insemination? Have children been conceived and born through the combination of two haploid eggs?

  79. SarahW says:

    I had better go see if my ankle is working and have a run. Marriage doesn’t seem to be holding up any better than maleness. Paratus sum!

  80. John Cheshire says:

    Why couldn’t this “Living Constitution” bring back something good from it’s nice vacation overseas? A nice single malt perhaps? a pint of Guiness would be nice as well. I will need both to deal with the likes of nishi!

  81. scooter (not libby) says:

    Hell, Jeff, I say give ’em all of NJ. Including Princeton and Rutgers. I just want those fucking borders SEALED.

  82. Rob Crawford says:

    What you never seem to factor in as legitimate is the desire of those who wish to respect the “tyranny of biological imperatives,” not because they are superstitious, but because they believe some biological imperatives are hardwired in as the best course to take in certain circumstances.

    The funny thing is, lots of people (myself, frex) see those biological imperatives as one of the things we developed via evolution.

    But I’m weird in that I see humanity as flawed but generally a good thing, and don’t see a need to try to eliminate the flaws. Of course, I think those flaws are, themselves, often good or useful (at the least, interesting), and that any attempt at perfection is doomed to failure.

  83. scooter (not libby) says:

    Rob C. proves once again what a wise man he is. But I probably only think that because I happen to agree with him.

  84. B Moe says:

    …just because science can do something doesn’t mean a thing to me.

    In nishi-world it means everything. If science can do it, it must be a good idea. Science lights the darkness. And nishi is much smarter than a few million years of trial and error, she is a fucking God now.

    The future will be Intelligently Designed.

  85. nishizonoshinji says:

    Have children been conceived and born through the combination of two haploid eggs?

    not in the US, to my knowledge.. it has been done with livestock and lab animals here.

    So Jeff, that is your position? Rather being proactive and cogitating in a whole new framework of biological possibilities, you are going to play whack-a-mole with every new biotech application that comes down the pike?
    We can talk about space law and lunar property, but we have to S.T.O.P. biolotech advances and cultural evolution RIGHT NOW.
    good luck with that.
    the only way i can think implementing that is Morgan’s Jesusland or the Handmaid’s Tale.

  86. JD

    it’s a riff on sexual orientation becoming a code word for a specific group of people who have become a protected class. How long before you can’t use “orientation” because it implies “difference”? Even though, if you think about it, it actually means facing the right way. You know, East, toward Jerusalem. Yeah,that’s right, Jerusalem. Anyway, no offense to you or yours, I’m picking on the prickly Mos.

  87. nishizonoshinji says:

    those biological imperatives as one of the things we developed via evolution.

    which are now obsolete because of reproductive freedom.
    go ahead, observe and value all you want.
    others wont, and you have no right to tell them not to.

  88. Pablo says:

    The voices in its head are apparently named Jeff.

  89. JD says:

    We can talk about space law and lunar property, but we have to S.T.O.P. biolotech advances and cultural evolution RIGHT NOW.

    It is like the nishit either intentionally misses every point directed at her, or it too stoooopid to understand them. Either way, the crazed reaction is predictable.

  90. Rob Crawford says:

    which are now obsolete because of reproductive freedom.
    go ahead, observe and value all you want.
    others wont, and you have no right to tell them not to.

    All those biological imperatives are “obsolete because of reproductive freedom”? Children no longer need positive male and female models? Parents no longer bond to their children?

    Just what in the current state of “reproductive freedom” changed the human genome? Last I checked we had a whole lot of options for not spawning, but that was it. And I don’t care what you read about in some SF book or some “gimme the cassshhhhh” grant request/think piece; what do we have now, what must we live with now is what we should base the organization of our society upon.

    And ya know what, nishidiot? I have no intent on telling anyone what to do. Unlike you, I’m aware of my own limitations. I cannot know everything, so I cannot possibly make decisions for others. I’m perfectly aware that even the decisions I make for myself are limited by the unknowable future, and that perfection is an impossibility. I don’t presume that people who disagree with me are “two-digits” or “sandwich board men”.

    You can proclaim that “we’ve moved beyond those base needs” all you want, but that doesn’t make it true.

  91. N. O'Brain says:

    “A zygote is a gamete’s way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.”

    -Robert A. Heinlein

  92. JD says:

    which are now obsolete because of reproductive freedom.

    Funny – I still thought some sperm was needed in this process. Apparently, Trojans and late-term abortions have made sperm obsolete.

  93. N. O'Brain says:

    Has anyone else ever noticed that every thread that nishinazi tries to hijack always reeks of bozone?

  94. Jim says:

    Whatchu gonna do about it, big guy?

    The Pope? How many divisions has he got?

    But seriously, it’s no big whoop. “Why doesn’t daddy want anything to do with me, Mom?”

    “Well, son, this is not a big deal. I wanted to have a child with my DNA and not just to adopt, because the fleshly, genetic connection between parent and child was important to me. As for your dad, he’s some guy who jacked off into a tube and left. Your father is wandering around somewhere, never having given you a second thought. It’s no big deal, though. After all, the fleshly, genetic connection between parent and child isn’t important to you unless you decide it is. I decided it was important to me. You should just decide it isn’t important to you.”

    “My daddy doesn’t care about me.”

    “I see that you persist in your compulsive and neurotic attachment to shopworn social structures. Let me point out that you wouldn’t exist at all had I not decided to create you. So, perhaps you should rethink your complaint about the circumstances of your creation. Oh, and I really wanted a hermaphrodite baby, so please stop complaining about the custom design job, too, okay?”

  95. nishizonoshinji says:

    nah, i just said the nuclear family got fragged by reproductive freedom.
    your argument seems to be that only the sperm donor can bestow socialization.

    hey, the sperm broadcasters have lost 1/3 of the active loci on the Y in the last 5000 years.
    they’re on the way out anyways.

    byee, lunch ovah.

  96. Rob Crawford says:

    nah, i just said the nuclear family got fragged by reproductive freedom.

    And, frankly, you were wrong. Are wrong. Always will be wrong.

    your argument seems to be that only the sperm donor can bestow socialization.

    Wrong again.

    Have you ever actually understood the positions others take?

  97. cranky-d says:

    Hey, attention whore. The next time you have a thought, just let it go, okay? Seriously.

  98. No my ankle is definately not working.
    Did they invent new super feets while I was out? The hover kind?

  99. What I like about being me is that I can oppress and offend people I’ve never met by simply using my penis according to its function.

    They should see what I do to it on my days off.

  100. Jeff G. says:

    So Jeff, that is your position? Rather being proactive and cogitating in a whole new framework of biological possibilities, you are going to play whack-a-mole with every new biotech application that comes down the pike?

    Huh?

    Can you not read? Here’s an idea: howsabout “cogitating” on what I actually said. I’m not against new biological frameworks, or being scientifically proactive. I’m against legislating against existing frameworks simply because science is stoked that it may be able to play God and build a universe in its image — just because it can.

    And I think it selfish, as Jim points out, to deprive a child of the socialization that comes from having parents of different sexes. After all, haven’t you been on here in the past (rightly) pointing out that the male and female sexes are different even in terms of brain function?

    Seems to me that this should be factored in to your social engineering plans, is all I’m saying.

  101. cranky-d says:

    LMC, you oppress and offend people simply by having a penis. Pointing out that fact is even more offensive. Actually using it? Heinous.

    I denounce you. And I denounce myself. Denouncements for everyone!

  102. Sdferr says:

    Nishi: “Your argument seems to be that only the sperm donor can bestow socialization.”

    I don’t know where you got this idea, Nishi, and most likely who ever it’s aimed at will respond appropriately. I would like to claim as my argument that “only the sperm donor can bestow the y chromosome, hence the maleness of any child with the subsequent power to bestow another y chromosome.” How’s that?
    Another way of putting it is, genuinely fatherless children will all be female. How’s that?

  103. B Moe says:

    …and you have no right to tell them not to.

    Are your little arms crossed across you chest when you say this, sticking your lower lip out? Are you holding your breath and puffing out your checks?

    YOU AIN’T THE BOSS OF ME!

    They are so cute when they’re angry.

  104. fatherless children will all be female. How’s that?

    Bzzzzzzzzzzzzt. My ovipositor denounces you.

  105. Sdferr says:

    I got some kinda damn bug that comes around ovipositing its eggs in my erstwhile papaya fruit. Every damn one of them gots maggots eating them away from the inside out. Damn ovipositors.

  106. I denounce my penis then. denounce it, denounce it, denou…..now I need a nap.

  107. Sdferr says:

    Course, on the other hand, all’a them fruits are female. Sweet!

    If I could ever get one before the maggots do.

  108. happyfeet says:

    the nuclear family got fragged by reproductive freedom is wrong. Mostly it got fragged by stupid social policies. Welfare a lot. And Lifetime Television. Oh and Murphy Brown was a liberal skank with an ensemble cast that basically never worked again. Cause they were annoying and hard to look at. The important thing is that nuclear families tend to do much better than skanky families and the ones that don’t have their shit together. It’s just sort of the natural order of things. It’s like how that one girl from high school what was so pretty and popular but she didn’t have a daddy and she got a law degree and I heard she was a very successful lawyer and I felt happy for her cause I had thought she was a neat girl but then it turns out she was on the committee for putting together our ten-year reunion and I thought ack there’s a red flag that she must have turned out a little warped. And she’ll probably pass those values on to her kids. It’s sad.

  109. happyfeet says:

    oh. the is wrong part is not supposed to have italics.

  110. SarahW says:

    “my erstwhile papaya fruit. Every damn one of them gots maggots eating them away from the inside out.”

    Even nematodes need pawpaws.

  111. Sdferr says:

    Usually true, dat.

  112. SarahW says:

    Well I do have a bad base of seeing spots, so take this with a grain of salt, but I observe there has been a divorcement of coitus from procreation in the popular perception… like they have nothing necessarily to do with each other.

  113. nishizonoshinji says:

    “And I think it selfish, as Jim points out, to deprive a child of the socialization that comes from having parents of different sexes.
    Aye, theres the rub.
    Like Wise Sarah says, you can’t legislate that.
    You can only ensure that for your own personal children.
    An, sure, don’t pay for it for gods sake.

    See, that is the basic problem for me.
    Your social, quasireligious beliefs don’t get to be imposed on the rest of society.
    Keep it in church.
    there’s no probelm in observing nuclear family rules for yourself and your personal family.
    its utter bullshit to impose that on anyone else.

  114. nishizonoshinji says:

    same-old-same-old as samesex marriage.

    here’s my bumpersticker.

    AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE? DON’T HAVE ONE>

  115. cranky-d says:

    Look at me!!

  116. cranky-d says:

    Lookit!! Lookit!! Lookit!!

  117. B Moe says:

    there’s no probelm in observing nuclear family rules for yourself and your personal family.
    its utter bullshit to impose that on anyone else.

    It is also utter bullshit to attempt to argue in a thread when you don’t have a clue what the point of the original post is. Learn to read.

  118. Cave Bear says:

    Nishi the Rocket Powered Turtle claims:

    “hey, the sperm broadcasters have lost 1/3 of the active loci on the Y in the last 5000 years. they’re on the way out anyways.”

    Nishi darlin’, you really, REALLY need to go get laid. And again, by a guy this time. You might just discover that a penis and sperm, wielded by the right guy, are not such bad things after all.

    Now, did you even bother to read those two links you put up? The first one doesn’t say a thing about “active loci on the Y” at all; all it said was that his mitochondrial DNA did not come from a modern grouping. On the second one, there was just as much written there about why the notion of the male being on his way out, so to speak, could just as likely be wrong.

    Next time try putting your brain in gear before engaging your fingers.

  119. happyfeet says:

    Oh. And also if you feel like you would be embarrassed to show up at your high school reunion not being gay married and being like a big gay failure then you’re probably taking both your gay marriedness and your high school reunion way too seriously except I’d really have to ask why you felt you needed to go at all either way. That we still have high school reunions really a lot kicks the legs out under of nishi’s cultural evolution theory I think.

  120. “Like Wise Sarah says, you can’t legislate that.
    You can only ensure that for your own personal children.”

    Was there some other Sarah in here?

    Yes, you can keep elibibility for artificial methods of conception a matter of law, and no you can’t legislate away husband dying or a man running away from contact with his children.

    -SarahW

  121. Pablo says:

    Its like tinnitus for teh interwebs.

  122. maggie katzen says:

    AGAINST SCIENCE? GET OVER IT!

  123. maggie katzen says:

    oops, sorry.

  124. Slartibartfast says:

    Nuclear families exist for utilitarian purposes, as well as others (including “pseudoreligious”, whatever the hell THAT means). Try raising a kid solo sometime, and observe just one of the many possible downsides to fragging the nuclear family.

    Birth control didn’t frag the nuclear family so much as make it more an end of choice. You can even make your own, if the choice is removed. Mine is made of me, my wife, and two adopted instances of that abandoned girlchild-on-a-hillside nishi alluded to on a prior thread. And as much as my nuclear family works, I’m not the least bit interested in legislating it as a necessity. Whichever orifice nishi fished that insinuation from, I’m not sure I want to know.

  125. Karl says:

    I, for one, welcome our new Morlock overlords.

  126. Homer Simpson says:

    nuclear family

    That’s nukuler. Nukuler.

  127. nishizonoshinji says:

    good Karl.
    we will save you for breeding purposes.
    ;)

  128. JD says:

    the nsihit does not want any morals or ethics to be imposed on her, but absolutelt insists on imposing her utter and complete lack of morals and ethics on everyone else.

  129. nishizonoshinji says:

    Cave, mebbe i got the wrong part of the link.
    Otzi had 1/3 more active loci on the Y than contemporary XY.
    granted, sample of one an all that, but a linear projection pegs the end of the XY as a subspecies (when all the loci go inactive) in another 2kplusorminus 8,000 years.

  130. JD says:

    nishit reminds me of that guy that predicted that the world would be overpopulated, we would run out of food, and the coming Ice Age.

    WHEN DID YOU ALL START HATING THEOCONS ?!

    /SPIT

  131. nishizonoshinji says:

    #128 should have been–

    good Karl.
    we will save you for breeding purposes.
    instead of eating you, as is our custom.
    ;)

  132. Rusty says:

    nishi said'”nah, i just said the nuclear family got fragged by reproductive freedom.

    No. It was fragged by the social engineering programs of “The Great Society” DD, or cleo, or thor will soon show up to complete your idiocy.

  133. I’ve heard that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Nishi has helped me appreciate that on levels which I had heretofore never even knew existed.

  134. DarthRove says:

    2000 +/- 8000 years, neesh?

    So it might have already happened 6000 BCE?!?

  135. dicentra says:

    Elbowing men out of the reproductive cycle and its subsequent social structures is the stupidest thing we could possibly do.

    Here’s a fact: male energy must be directed toward the protection and sustainment of society (read: women and children), or that energy will be used to utterly destroy society.

    Look in the inner cities, where the females pop out kids and the males are excluded except for their momentary contribution. Those males are destructive forces in those neighborhoods, because their energies are untamed, unchanneled, and uncontrolled. They express all of the excesses of violence and sex.

    Likewise in the Wahhabist (and wannabe) societies. The men literally cut themselves off from society by demeaning women and their offspring.

    On the other hand, when society, through its expectations and demands, harnesses male energy for the benefit of society, you get railroads, skyscrapers, interstate highway systems, computer networks, miracle drugs, surgical procedures, etc., plus offspring who know how to exercise self-restraint and who know how to brush themselves off when they hit a snag or a setback.

    Look: Mothers and fathers instill ethics in their children in different ways. Mothers say, “how would you like it if someone did that to you?” (empathy) whereas fathers say, “here’s the line, don’t cross it” (self-control). You cannot be a moral person with out those two skills.

    So yeah, our society has benefitted immensely by being populated with too many people who can empathize but who balk at being told to control themselves, and who want to be nurtured every time they scrape their knees instead of knowing how to deal with it themselves.

  136. Bill D. Cat says:

    How many here have children , and are separated ? ……. and of those how many see their children regularly ? I’ll go first . I have two , a daughter 10 and a son 7 . Missed one weekend in four years . Shit happens between adults …… there is no excuse not to be , or have a father .

  137. The Lost Dog says:

    hf –

    Turkey basters.

    Now that’s the ticket!

    Put your dick away! It’s a brand new day! What used to be your sex appeal is now your water spout!

  138. happyfeet says:

    Hey now. There’s just a lot bigger problems I think than the rise of the family hobbyist trend. Me I have turtles and I’m building a new pc, kind of way slowly, and after that I think I’ll get an X-box maybe. Also I want to re-read some Shakespeare but just the comedies. And finish ripping my cds.

    British lesbians make different choices is all.

  139. The Lost Dog says:

    And Bill D. Cat,

    It’s a killer question.

    I would love to move far from where I live, but I am only two miles from my son. I would NEVER leave him to his mom’s discretion.

    I spend every minute that I can with him, because he is a gift from God. I can only hope that the seeds I plant in him will someday sprout.

    His mother is nuts, but takes good care of him, and I am afraid that taking him away in court would do more harm than good. So I sit around and often reach despair. I am trying to get back, but my life has pretty much been destroyed. And when I say his mother is nuts, that doesn’t mean I hate her. I guess I actually have two children – but one of them is fifty years old and I am married to her.

    But just seeing him and being with him returns me to the feeling of wonder that he has always brought to me.

    Some decisions are just very hard, but my son is my favorite person, and I hope that I am the lighthouse in the harbor to him. Even if he is sometimes blind to the light at his age. I think it is much tougher to deal with what he is aware of than it was for my parents to deal with what I was aware of – which, at eight years old, was not much.

    Keep on. A fatherless child is a disaster waiting to happen.

  140. Darleen says:

    #114 nishimonster

    there’s no probelm in observing nuclear family rules for yourself and your personal family.
    its utter bullshit to impose that on anyone else.

    oh gawd, would someone puhleeze send her a crate of batteries, because that twat has been so neglected NishiGod wants to impose her frustrations on everyone.

    the little godbot ought to visit any prison or juvie facility and see the results of fatherless children and THEN spew that society has no interest in promoting heterosexual marriage/family.

    fuck you nishi, I’m TIRED of picking up the real wrecks your ilk leave in my wake.

  141. happyfeet says:

    Well no really I think there’s a distinction between fatherless elitey liberal types and your general fatherless riff-raff. It’s just impolite and not very egalitarian to point it out is all.

  142. happyfeet says:

    I mean how often to you pretend fatherlessness doesn’t matter? Jeez. It’s not like I can look upon like half the people I meet here with an admixture of pity and horror.

    Oh wait.

  143. Darleen says:

    oh, and about that “tyranny of biology business”… Nishi is terrified of reproduction.

  144. The Lost Dog says:

    “scooter, the nuclear family is being re-engineered by the evolution of culture, not by nazis or marxists.”

    No, nutsy-blah-blah.

    The nuclear family is being re-engineered by Marxists and arrogant, self-loving imbeciles like you. It’s all in writing, if you ever care to research it.

    Back when Goldwater was running for president, he had an ad running where Kruschev said: “We will conquer you without firing a shot”. It’s too bad that he was right on the money. Your “freedom” is not God given, and, apparently, neither is your “intelligence” (something you are too obviously and arrogantly proud of).

    Freedom is not free. Never has been, never will be. And I think that within the next ten to twenty years, you are going to very painfully have to face this fact, because every year we get more propagandized and illiterate “graduates” from our public school system. It appears that you might be one of them, or easily could be, from this angle.

    You think you are SOOOO smart. Nope. You may have intelligence, but you are as stupid as a bag of hammers. Thanks to you and your “comrades” for helping to fuck up this country for my son. It looks like he is going to live in a “socialist (fascist) heaven”.

    It’s hard to believe that someone of your obvious intelligence could be so fucking blind, arrogant, and stupid…

    But hey! Stick with the demographics! The “norm” is where it’s at, baby! Don’t worry about being free! It’s SOOO much more important to “be hip”!

    Fucking morons….

  145. happyfeet says:

    Oh. *do* you pretend is what I meant at #143. But also it’s not like reproduction isn’t scary.

  146. Darleen says:

    hf

    well, there’s scary then there’s scary

    I loved being preggers.

  147. syn says:

    I say that the majority of single women in the Western world, particularily those entering pre-menopause, are having a child in order to have a trusted caretaker available for when she’s old; it’s more like women are reproducing their own personal slave who will tend to every needy and infantile demand.

    The reason why these women leech off the male’s sperm is that they’re not interested in family, they just want to be assured they have a slave who will live their life to serve Her.

  148. McGehee says:

    Nishi is terrified of reproduction.

    Good.

  149. Cowboy says:

    feets:

    At my 20th reunion there was a knife fight.

    As a class, we have evolved to the point where we don’t feel the need to reunionize anymore.

  150. Cowboy says:

    ’cause in real life, knife fights are very scary and stabby.

  151. Homer Simpson says:

    Otzi had 1/3 more active loci on the Y than contemporary XY

    Also infertility, so he didn’t pass it on. Which is kinda moot, given that it’s mitochondrial DNA, but that’s been already been pointed out and ignored.

    Oh, and this:

    Original DNA studies suggested that “Oetzi’s mitochondrial DNA does not resemble any sub-type found in any present existing ethnic group.”

  152. SarahW says:

    “these women leech off the male’s sperm”

    Syn, does not avoid women. But he does deny them his essense.

  153. nishizonoshinji says:

    so?
    we are considering the devolution of the Y chromosome.
    both sexes have mitochondrial DNA.
    Otzi had 1/3 more active loci on the Y than contemporary man.
    that would represent an extremely atypical mutation, Homer.

    Aggression is no longer a species benefit….a lot of evolutionary biologists believe it is on the decline in homosapiens sapiens. Certainly we are undergoing a cultural phenotypical feminization. Quite possibly a genotypical one as well.
    Look at all the studies of how boys are treated in school.
    Currently it is better for society if the XY become less aggro.
    Society shapes culture according to its needs.

  154. JD says:

    Cowboy – I have to go to Better Half’s 20th reunion this summer in southern Indiana. I might just have to start hitting the bottle again.

  155. JD says:

    Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum.

  156. Darleen says:

    Look at all the studies of how boys are treated in school.

    It’s disgusting.

    But then, there are a lot of people who want humanity to go extinct, FOR THE GOOD OF GAIA

  157. MayBee says:

    My husband insisted on coming to my reunion (which was sweet) but he was sorry about 7 minutes into it. I was glad that he was there because this guy I thought was creepy in high school proved to be creepy still.

  158. SarahW says:

    Seriously: the slave thing is bunkum. Those women waited, and time has run out, and it’s now or never. It has nothing to do with companions or consolation for later years any more than a quiverful collected in one’s youth. People want children, and women most especially. I don’t mean to say every individual woman does, but most do. The desire to bounce a baby is strong, to live a full life, to pass on ones legacy, to teach, to have a bit of immortality, to love in that way…people who want to experience life are not leeches.

    The folly of waiting till it’s almost too late, is part product of the ability to wait – to have sexual relationships without the near-inevitability of children, and for women to pursue a career as men always have, without the intense distraction of constant childbirth. Young people are foolish, they don’t know how fast time moves when they are young, and it seems like there is always later, always tomorrow, to do the parenting thing. And truthfully the opportunity to be married and have a baby the old fashioned way with the right man never presents.

    I had my one live birth when I was pretty much the perfect age, in my mid-late twenties.
    But if I never had, I know I would have tried hard when the passage of time and my limited time here dawned on me. Not the best, without a man, not ideal, but better than nothing. That’s how people work.

  159. Darleen says:

    syn

    IMHO, I don’t believe that “minime” thing. For the majority of women who find themselves up against the biological clock, it is the drive.

    I don’t know if you have any idea of how strong the drive is to have a baby. Looking back, I am still amazed by my feelings at the time I was having children. It is overwhelming.

    Many single women are able to satiate that drive by adopting, too. But the drive remains.

  160. nishizonoshinji says:

    Look Jeff.
    This is cultural evolution in action.
    Eventually samesex marriage will be legal and acceptable, lesbian couples will be able to have biological children with ovum recombination, homosexual married men will raise biological children from ectogenisis with a j-womb.
    People will have designer babies, and purchase the best germlines available for their offspring.
    /shrug
    All you have is some weak quasireligious argument that manchildren need to be socialized by having the influence of a biological father.
    Technology is leaking thru the barriers now and you trying to patch the cracks with “judeo-xian ethos”.
    Fragile material, it wont hold.
    Essentially trying to hold back the future.

  161. SarahW says:

    Also, newbies have NO IDEA how hard it is to be a new mother; without my husband, I don’t see how I would have managed. I wildly underestimated the need for assistance.

  162. JD says:

    Ever get the idea that nishit thinks the world is going to look like The Jetsons in a few years?

    TO HELL WITH ALL THE PENIS PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!! Who needs you when nishit has science.

    I CAN HAS BABIES !!!!!!!!!!!

  163. B Moe says:

    This is cultural evolution in action.

    And there are no dead end paths taken in evolution, all new systems are superior to old ones. nishi is way smarter than 100,000 years of trial and error. Because she said so.

    Did I mention it was NEW and IMPROVED?

  164. Homer Simpson says:

    Otzi had 1/3 more active loci on the Y than contemporary man

    But, sadly, he was likely infertile.

    Wonder what kept those infertility genes from being passed on?

  165. nishizonoshinji says:

    JD, hehe…..one of my very first posts at Gene Expression.
    wat a n00b i was.

    Y Not?

  166. SarahW says:

    There he sits in my
    in my j-uterus
    What a coup for us
    That’s my boy
    GATCG spells dad and dad
    And that ain’t too bad
    That’s my boy

    You can have meth parties
    and your nightclubs
    And you can have your
    bareback Craigslist Ads
    I’ll stay here with my
    little man near
    We’ll download and dance to Midler’s “Rose”
    Biding my time and
    Watching Scotty grow

  167. Homer Simpson says:

    nishi presents a single, bare datum, and expects us to accept her conclusions without any other supporting data.

    Me, I’m just going to say the same thing over and over, without providing support, because that seems to constitute compelling argument, from her POV.

  168. Homer Simpson says:

    It’s wishful thinking at its best.

    Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…

  169. nishizonoshinji says:

    Homer
    my point is that either Otzi was representative of the state of XY homosapiens sapiens or not.
    it is most probable that his Y was representative, since 1/3 more active loci can hardly be explained by mutation.
    it is completely irrelevent whether he was fertile or not.

  170. MayBee says:

    If sex becomes so separated from procreation, I wonder if people will just stop having sex. That’s evolution, baby!

  171. Sdferr says:

    Y-not. How exciting! O yes, let’s do be rid of all those aggressive hammer-swinging, tunnel-digging, spear-chucking, scalpel-wielding, fugue-writing, profit-making, pastry-cooking, bridge-building, drug-finding, science-seeking, piano-playing, barn-erecting, etc. louts to come.

  172. Nishi needs to read Mary Shelley. Understanding it would be double plus good.

  173. Slartibartfast says:

    Homer is me, just to be clear. There was no intention to mislead, just the usual screwing-up of the nukuler joke.

    Nishi, the 1/3 more active loci bit pretty much all Google-traces back to you and your other noms de plume, so some cite to the evidence might be interesting, if not conclusive of anything all by itself. Also, some explanation of what that’s supposed to mean would be good. We aren’t all highly versed in genetics, and I’m not willing to take your word for that it’s significant.

  174. Carin -BONC says:

    The coolest thing about fake uteruses and designer babies is that only the people with loads of cash will be able play. The future is for the elite only.

  175. B Moe says:

    The coolest thing about fake uteruses and designer babies is that only the people with loads of cash will be able play. The future is for the elite only.

    Someone better make sure to explain that to all those poor schmucks cranking out little aggro beasts the old fashioned way.

  176. nishizonoshinji says:

    Sykes did the DNA analysis…im still lookin for the exact cite.

    Q. Still, you write that the Y chromosome is flawed and doomed, and predict that it will disappear. Why?

    A. Because, unlike all other chromosomes, the Y doesn’t get a chance to mix with any other chromosomes. It doesn’t get to exchange DNA with the others, the opportunity which sex itself provides, which is a sad irony since it is the Y that differentiates the male from female in the first place. It gets passed on from one male to another, and it cannot repair mutations through genetic recombination.

    Moreover, the Y chromosome is subject to a higher mutation rate than other chromosomes because it is perennially confined to the male germ line. Male germ line cells and their DNA divide very, very fast to keep up with sperm production. Most mutations occur when DNA divides. So the Y is intrinsically unstable. By my estimate, in about 5,000 generations — 125,000 years — male fertility will be roughly 1 percent of what it is now. Mutations in Y chromosomes are already known to reduce male fertility. So I see a slow decline in men’s fertility until, eventually, men can no longer breed naturally.

    i gtg, ill look later.

  177. Sdferr says:

    Nishi, are you referring to sp. homo sap when you write “male” in the above? Or does male in your context mean all males of whatever sp.? Sexedness has been around how long now, under current theory? Was evolutionarily derived? Still subject to evolutionary forces? Count me for now as a skeptic w/regard to your predictive power in this domain.

  178. MayBee says:

    Why would men maintain the urge to have sex if they can no longer breed naturally? This sounds like horrible news for everyone.

  179. MayBee says:

    Except for the young girls of the FDLS, of course.

  180. Sdferr says:

    Maybee,

    Less “horrible news” than “I’m gettin’ me some silicon D-cups” sort of projection.

  181. Slartibartfast says:

    Sykes did the DNA analysis…im still lookin for the exact cite.

    Ah, the Adam’s Curse guy. It’d be interesting to see the peer reviews on that.

    Interesting notion. Not especially alarming to any of the next several dozen generations, though. I also caution against drawing straight-line extrapolations through two data. I mean, it’s not as if there isn’t anything we don’t understand about genetics.

  182. nishizonoshinji says:

    nah, it’s way out there, Slarti do see societal trends that support the err, feminization of the species….
    like the subject of Jeffs post.
    but..if it is happening, i think it is inevitable.

    Sdferr, this is one of my favorite books in the widewide world. Hamilton is teh awesome.
    we need a whole thread at least if u wanna discuss that.

    Narrow Roads of Gene Land, Volume 2: Evolution of Sex

  183. Sdferr says:

    Nishi,
    Thanks for the book pointer. I’ve started checking local libraries, no luck yet. Hamilton, I have on authority I trust, is indeed awesome. I’d be happy to discuss, though for my part it’d be more like learning and scrambling to keep up than discussing really. My knowledge on sex I might characterize as stuck back in the Red Queen nineties. Furthermore I don’t think I’d be comfortable hijacking any PW threads to sate my curiosity, so lemme see if I can’t find the book and we’ll take it up later or as it comes up, whichever happens first.

  184. McGehee says:

    it is completely irrelevent whether he was fertile or not.

    Um, I’ve got a Mr. Darwin on line one. He sounds disgusted.

  185. Slartibartfast says:

    I think nishi’s point is, poorly-supported as it is, that &#214tzi was typical of his population group, and hence it doesn’t actually matter if &#213tzi himself was infertile, because his (approximate) version of XY would still get passed on to subsequent generations.

    I think that’s problematic, but I’m willing to take it as a hypothetical. Possible; perhaps even likely. &#214tzi’s corpse was only 5k years old or so, which means he lived was roughly a contemporary of First Dynastic Egypt. IOW, he postdated the beginnings of organized civilization.

    I think nishi’s larger point is that XY has no mechanism by which it can increase its number of active loci, and therefore…something. Because I don’t understand the finer points of genetics very well, I’m guessing that means XY will no longer pass to offspring, which means no more male offspring. Whether this happens gradually or all at once is anyone’s guess.

    It’s also anyone’s guess (unless they’re much more familiar with this kind of thing than I am) whether there’s any statistical variation in the number of active loci in XY, and whether we can breed to reverse the trend. Again, not my thing.

    Nishi, feel free to clean up where I’ve mucked things up. This is something I’m interested in understanding better. And by “better”, I mean something like “at all”.

  186. Slartibartfast says:

    The blog is mangling HTML; “&#214” is supposed to be “Ö”

  187. Sdferr says:

    Slart,

    Found on the intarwebs at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4225769:

    “Last year, Page and his colleagues reported a finding that brightened the outlook for the future of men: The Y chromosome has been secretly creating backup copies of its most important genes. These are stored in the DNA as mirror images, or palindromes — which read the same way forwards and backwards. (“Madam, I’m Adam” is a famous example.)

    In Y chromosome palindromes, the first half contains the gene and the second half contains the same information, just in reverse.

    That means that many of the genes on the Y chromosome do occur as pairs. Page says members of these pairs appear to be swapping out or recombining with each other — allowing the genes to repair themselves when they get damaged.”

    I had vaguely remembered some story to this effect, that a mechanism of self-repair had been found on Y, that it differed from the ordinary mechanism of self-repair in DNA, was simple, elegant, surprising and unsurprising all at once (though of course in different respects.) However, my vague memory was of encountering this story in early 2007, not in 2004 when this NPR story went out.
    I gonna go back to looking.
    SDF

  188. Slartibartfast says:

    Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.

  189. Slartibartfast says:

    Interesting, Sdferr. Tangentially interesting is how closely X represents a pair of fuzzy slippers placed end to end.

  190. Slartibartfast says:

    And…thanks. Cool stuff.

    In the Amazon reviews for Adam’s Curse, Sykes gets hacked for ignoring this very research.

    Which I find interesting, whatever it might mean.

  191. B Moe says:

    So the woman genes is trying to force the man genes out by ganging up on them, but the man genes figured a backdoor around it, and also figured out how to fix themselves in the meantime, is that about it, then?

  192. Sdferr says:

    Here’s another interesting thing, I think. Birds have an analog sex determining pair of chromos, but with them the females carry the hetero, named ZW, the males carry the homo, named ZZ. Now the W in ZW ought to have the same trouble Nishi has been imputing to the Y, but if I’m not mistaken, birds are thought to have been around a good deal longer than mammals. Maybe it haps that the W is on the verge of the Catastrophic Crash of unreproduciblity but I just haven’t got wind of it yet, or maybe no such crash is coming?

  193. MayBee says:

    So the woman genes is trying to force the man genes out by ganging up on them, but the man genes figured a backdoor around it, and also figured out how to fix themselves in the meantime, is that about it, then?

    Wow. It’s almost as if the genes themselves are involved in gender-based behavior.

  194. Slartibartfast says:

    maybe no such crash is coming?

    The-end-is-near is always a good sell, I think. Human extinction always sells sci-fi books. The White Plague, for instance. Large objects slamming into the Earth are better, though, as are Von Neumann machines dismantling the Earth for spare atoms.

  195. Sdferr says:

    B Moe,
    That’s about it, looks like. Outnumbered three to one, brave Achilleus stood his ground, ‘gainst Hera, Aphrodite, even Tritogenia herself………..and had a son.

  196. B Moe says:

    I fucking hate Von Neumann machines.

  197. Sdferr says:

    I like the-end-is-far-story myself (bigswollenredhotthinggetsyou) but haven’t figured out how to sell it to anybody.

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