We do, in fact, know what causes cancer. It's just random mutation of a LOT of DNA codons. The problem is partly that it takes so many mutations, in so many possible combinations, that we can't point to a single cause. But that doesn't mean we can't predict what things are more likely to induce those cancerous mutations. In fact, we have names for the series of things that are likely to cause mutation; carcinogens. You're right that we don't know to the exact decimal place how carcinogenic certain things are. But we do know that cigarettes are 1,000,000 times as carcinogenic as, say, a baked potato.
Does this mean that smoking cigarettes will undoubtedly give you cancer, always, in every case? No. Does it mean that avoiding carcinogens will completely safeguard you against it? No. Because the mechanism is still completely random - you could smoke your entire life and never create a particular combination of mutations that causes your cells to divide uncontrollably, or you could get a bad set of transcription errors and end up with cancer anyway. But that doesn't mean you should discount smoking, industrial waste and radiation as health risks simply because we don't know if habanero peppers are slightly carcinogenic or not.
The question is, if rolling a die a thousand times in a specific order would give you a horrible, disfiguring and probably deadly disease, would you rather roll the die 1 billion times, or 100 billion times?
I doubt there are "safer" parts of the chromosome to move to. Mutation is mostly caused by two things: transcription error and radiation. These are as close to random as any factors I could imagine. If there are "safer" areas, their relative "safety" would be only dimly marginal. To safeguard their DNA, organisms fill their genome with junk to dilute the overall chance of any real information being corrupted.
By definition, all mutations are equally likely. However, you might want to consider:
1. Large DNA sequences are more likely to become mutated. Organisms that build smaller proteins are less likely to be affected.
2. Many mutations have no effect, due to redundancy in the genetic code.
3. Most mutations that do affect the cell merely render a cell function inoperable, causing the death of the individual cell. But others merely lower protein production, or make the protein less effective. (Proteins are machines, and some parts are not vital to their function - thus larger proteins are less likely to be rendered inoperable by a mutation, somewhat diminishing the effect of (1).) For example, the number of mutations needed to produce cancer is very high; it's highly unlikely that one cell would encounter all of them. It probably inherited a string of less-than-fatal mutations from its parent cells.
4. Most mutations that actually change the readable DNA in an egg cell result in an inviable zygote, and therefore will not be passed on to offspring. (Thus, we don't see most mutations that are present in the parents' eggs.)
5. The most common genetic malformities that do result in viable offspring, such as Down Syndrome, result from duplicated or missing whole chromosomes, not mutations on the genetic level.
We are much more durable than you might think.
I don't know what telomeres have to do with "mutation," really. They are truncated in each cellular division in a predictable way, regardless of whether any part of the telomere has been mutated. (And telomeres are mostly junk DNA anyway, so who cares if they get changed?)
I might point out that, a hundred years ago, a woman might be committed to a mental institution for trying to open her own bank account. Things that were completely unclassified in psychology as little as 30 years ago are now officially recognized disorders (such as eating disorders), and things that were common disorders in the old days have been dropped and discarded as bunk (hysteria, anyone?). Psychology is as much zeitgeist as it is hard science.
As for homosexuality as a disorder, I think it highly, highly likely that many symptoms of this "disorder" which showed signs of strain on the "sufferer" were actually the effects of stress caused by being gay in a highly heterosexual-centered society. I think it takes only five minutes talking to a gay person to figure out that they aren't crazy, although in some cases I have seen people "turn gay" as a result of already being crazy. I've also seen people switch religions to the same effect.
As for your simplistic view of the evolutionary role of sex, I'd like to point out that reproduction is not always necessary or desirable for members of a species, especially when population growth increases drastically. However, all mammals have a sex drive no matter the desirability of offspring. I'm sure you can see a natural cause for homosexual behavior there. And we have observed homosexual behavior and sex-specific behaviors crossing sexes in many animals for a variety of purposes - everything from ensuring females gestate properly to raising abandoned offspring, to creating the illusion of sex balance when one sex becomes scarce. The "unnatural" label just doesn't stick any more.
You're getting warmer, but you still aren't quite on the money yet. A video game console isn't a piece of AV equipment; it's a toy. As such, it should be able to deal with running on top of a pile of clothes in a kid's room, on the floor, on a stack of pizza boxes, stacked on top of other gaming hardware, pretty much anywhere. It also needs to be able to withstand being kicked, having the wires pull out suddenly, being gnawed on by pets, etc. No matter how much shiny plastic we may cover it in, we cannot hide the fact that play is messy.
Dare I go so far as to point out that Nintendo is the only major player in the console market that has experience making toys?
Yet, this information is important. We have seen so many reasons to doubt the words of our elected leaders, at this point the American people need to know. If these wiretaps didn't involve national security - if they were political or commercial in nature, then the American public - not a Congressional committee, not an investigative board, not the Supreme court, the American public need to know about it. Our vote decides the fate of this country, and it would be a travesty of democracy for our elected leaders to force those votes to go forth uninformed.
(Also, I seriously doubt that if the NSA is following any truly dangerous terrorists in the United States with this program, that they would have any trouble detaining him/her as soon as they had reason to suspect that they were dangerous. If they can hold Cat Stevens, I'm sure they could justify detaining a real terrorist, and I highly doubt they would wiretap them for weeks or months and then do nothing.)
I don't think it is. Bejeweled and Zuma are probably the most-played games in the world right now. Animal Crossing and Nintendogs are topping the sales charts. MMOs are quickly becoming the new game stereotype. There are no less than 6 different flavors of The Sims available at Wal-Mart. RPGs are still the most influential games on the market in terms of driving console sales, and it's doubtful that will change in your lifetime. Mario, Zelda, and Metroid alone support about 1/3 of the gaming market.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Those double underlined adverlinks have to go. I will not even read your site any further, let alone click your ads, if I see them. They are a blight on your content: invasive, irrelevant and obnoxious. Please get rid of them. Thank you.
I dunno. I hear statements like "Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists," coming out of this war all the time. I'm pretty sure kids can understand that. If nothing else, the people at the top have been watering down the issues to where children can understand them, even when their audience is the adult population.
Then we have the talk shows, where people jaw about how bad their political opponents are and how much they're like the terrorists. Don't tell me a kid has never heard his parents repeat Rush Limbaugh. There are people out there teaching anti-Islamic hatred in the name of preventing terrorism. There are people who are using the war to scare people into buying guns. There's a government that, whenever confronted with their mistakes or their misdeeds, wonder how they could be expected to be virtuous or diligent when there's a war going on.
I think, considering all that, there's just a teensy weensy tiny probability that it might have more of a role in raising violent children than video games do.
Pah. Grim Fandango beats the pants off every adventure game before and since. Although I would also point out that Monkey Island 3 was released just before it, and it's widely considered to be the best in the series. Full Throttle is hardly the "last."
I sent them a "compliment" with a "tip" to the concerned mother, telling her to call the police or inform a manager if her child is meeting predators in Pictochat, because they have to be close by to communicate in that program. I also told her to tell her kid not to give her friend code out. I was cheery and "helpful" so maybe that'll help them realize what a bunch of idiots they are for running that story.
I honestly can't believe they found a "security expert" who was willing to ignore the fact that it was technically impossible for someone to incite the described scenario over the internet. He lied to get on TV, so, shame on him.
Also, I wish they'd stop saying that the DS is intended to be a childrens' toy. It certainly is something small kids would enjoy, and it certainly is a toy, but a lot of adults have them and enjoy them and get together at PAX to draw penises at each other while getting smashed. It's not like a Leappad or something.
4orty2wo confirmed that they were behind Last Call Poker fairly early on, partly by having Jane McGonigal (a sort of ARG celebrity) show up at live events, but also through press releases and the interviews. From what Jane has been saying lately, she agrees with you, and you're going to see 4orty2wo announcing their presence subtly for future games.
You can usually tell anyway. For example, the entire site design for I Love Bees was similar to Ivy's breakdown page in The Beast, and some of the stories and characterization were very similar between the two. You can also tell a Szulborski game a mile away - the guy has a very distinct style.
In any case, these games are supposed to draw you in with a good hook and compelling story, and since most of them are ads for other products, the creators are going to be as discreet as possible in promoting themselves. It seems silly to advertise when the game itself is an advertisement!
Beat Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Then you can come back and tell me that Nintendo's interface designs are for retards, if you really want to. In fact, I defy you to even beat Pac-Pix.
See, I was the helpless friend in this scenario. I couldn't even play Mario worth shit. Then at some point I picked up a Cube controller and ever since then I've gotten really good at games - not as good as some of my most hardcore friends, but I can beat the snot out of my siblings in Mario Kart.
I think at some point, my natural abilities collided with the difficulty level of the games I was exposed to, and ever since then I've improved both with my game abilities and my hand-eye coordination and control of objects in the real world. So I, for one, think they're right. You aren't necessarily born l33t.
For what it's worth, the Nintendo DS is cracked wide open and people are writing all sorts of fun homebrew for it. (And although this emulator is a favorite, games like this one are also a big hit.)
I refuse to use the term "graphic novel." It's an uppity word used by insecure people to cloak the things that bring them pleasure. Be proud of your comics, dammit!
My 16 year old sister - sharp as a tack - pointed out something very interesting in this debate: Why is it that we use the same word - institution - to describe marriage, that we used to defend slavery a hundred years ago?
Because there is no justifiable other reason for the current system. It's simply a habit, an assumption about the way things are going to happen. There are very few habits worth this sort of strain on the population. It would be harder, more disruptive and more dangerous to change the color of all the yield signs in America than to allow gay people to marry.
I agree - more freedom can't but help our people, and that includes the freedom to marry. If anything, it includes that. It's nobody's goddamn business but their own.
A second mom can love her daughter very dearly, but (unless the difference between genders is far more superficial than commonly-accepted evidence seems to indicate) she can never be the girl's father.
The ultimate hypocrisy of this argument is that if any female parent were ever able to adequately act as a father, or any male parent as a mother, you would say that they were breaking the natural order by doing so. So by "never" you really mean, "as long as I have a say in it."
As to fathers, I have seen them do as much harm as good to their children, and great amounts of both. I don't subscribe to the notion that fatherhood is the only thing that holds a family together.
Honestly, there is a lot of good that can come from gay people being open about it in a hostile environment. It confronts anti-gay people with the object of their hate and humanizes it, and can eventually turn communities tolerant over time. So yes, there IS a good reason to be open about it, and I don't think that any of the gay people involved expect NOT to be harassed, but they expect to inure some of the people of the backwards notion that gays are like vampires, werewolves, and the boogeyman - nonexistent but still to be feared. Forming a whole guild full of gay gamers seems like the perfect extension of this.
But even putting this aside, let's remember that this person didn't go to the GMs and bitch and fuss about the omnipresent anti-gay sentiment in the game, demanding that they fix it. She just went off and tried to play with her own crowd, which is how a mature person would handle the situation.
Is it valid to sell or buy a human embryo?
Yes. Fertility clinics do this all the time.
To clone embryos?
Yes, if you want demonstrably repeatable tests, or want to test on known DNA.
To make human-animal hybrids?
Yes, yes, and yes. This is already an integral part of disease research and the production of important hormones and proteins, including insulin. It would be idiotic to get rid of it now.
In other words, maybe the reason people haven't been outlining their point by point objections is that Bush's ENTIRE PROPOSAL is bunk.
A human embryo is a fragile thing, tiny compared to what it will eventually become. It is in it's earliest stages of development where many, many things can go wrong. Just like the butterflies, they can and will die in great numbers. Species with external, freestanding eggs - like butterflies - have a huge larval mortality rate - only 3 or 4 in thousands may survive. In humans, a given fertilized egg has better odds, about a 1 in 4 chance of surviving through birth. But death still claims the majority of humans before they are even born.
So to put it another way: we cannot help but kill the butterflies.
But that is nothing to be sad about. It is part of the way humans exist biologically. Our DNA is almost all junk. We generate millions of genetic deformities. We have to fail many, many times before we experience success. This is part of who we are, and I think too many people take that wholly for granted.
If you don't want to stand out in a crowd, don't call attention to yourself.
Hear hear! And it doesn't stop with gays, either. This goes for all you obnoxious knitting enthusiasts who insist on wearing sweaters, all you Christians in the bible quote t-shirts and all you disgusting Republicans and Democrats who have the nerve to tell me who you support for Governor. How dare you enforce your identity in public! Have you no shame?
Seriously, though. Being comfortable revealing key parts of your identity is a basic social need. This is why Republicans get together for drinks after the convention, football fans have tailgate parties, fans of Penny Arcade get together and game. You may not like what they represent, but that doesn't mean that people who form gay social groups are doing anything out of the ordinary.
Slashdot Mirror
We do, in fact, know what causes cancer. It's just random mutation of a LOT of DNA codons. The problem is partly that it takes so many mutations, in so many possible combinations, that we can't point to a single cause. But that doesn't mean we can't predict what things are more likely to induce those cancerous mutations. In fact, we have names for the series of things that are likely to cause mutation; carcinogens. You're right that we don't know to the exact decimal place how carcinogenic certain things are. But we do know that cigarettes are 1,000,000 times as carcinogenic as, say, a baked potato.
Does this mean that smoking cigarettes will undoubtedly give you cancer, always, in every case? No. Does it mean that avoiding carcinogens will completely safeguard you against it? No. Because the mechanism is still completely random - you could smoke your entire life and never create a particular combination of mutations that causes your cells to divide uncontrollably, or you could get a bad set of transcription errors and end up with cancer anyway. But that doesn't mean you should discount smoking, industrial waste and radiation as health risks simply because we don't know if habanero peppers are slightly carcinogenic or not.
The question is, if rolling a die a thousand times in a specific order would give you a horrible, disfiguring and probably deadly disease, would you rather roll the die 1 billion times, or 100 billion times?
I doubt there are "safer" parts of the chromosome to move to. Mutation is mostly caused by two things: transcription error and radiation. These are as close to random as any factors I could imagine. If there are "safer" areas, their relative "safety" would be only dimly marginal. To safeguard their DNA, organisms fill their genome with junk to dilute the overall chance of any real information being corrupted.
By definition, all mutations are equally likely. However, you might want to consider:
1. Large DNA sequences are more likely to become mutated. Organisms that build smaller proteins are less likely to be affected.
2. Many mutations have no effect, due to redundancy in the genetic code.
3. Most mutations that do affect the cell merely render a cell function inoperable, causing the death of the individual cell. But others merely lower protein production, or make the protein less effective. (Proteins are machines, and some parts are not vital to their function - thus larger proteins are less likely to be rendered inoperable by a mutation, somewhat diminishing the effect of (1).) For example, the number of mutations needed to produce cancer is very high; it's highly unlikely that one cell would encounter all of them. It probably inherited a string of less-than-fatal mutations from its parent cells.
4. Most mutations that actually change the readable DNA in an egg cell result in an inviable zygote, and therefore will not be passed on to offspring. (Thus, we don't see most mutations that are present in the parents' eggs.)
5. The most common genetic malformities that do result in viable offspring, such as Down Syndrome, result from duplicated or missing whole chromosomes, not mutations on the genetic level.
We are much more durable than you might think.
I don't know what telomeres have to do with "mutation," really. They are truncated in each cellular division in a predictable way, regardless of whether any part of the telomere has been mutated. (And telomeres are mostly junk DNA anyway, so who cares if they get changed?)
I might point out that, a hundred years ago, a woman might be committed to a mental institution for trying to open her own bank account. Things that were completely unclassified in psychology as little as 30 years ago are now officially recognized disorders (such as eating disorders), and things that were common disorders in the old days have been dropped and discarded as bunk (hysteria, anyone?). Psychology is as much zeitgeist as it is hard science.
As for homosexuality as a disorder, I think it highly, highly likely that many symptoms of this "disorder" which showed signs of strain on the "sufferer" were actually the effects of stress caused by being gay in a highly heterosexual-centered society. I think it takes only five minutes talking to a gay person to figure out that they aren't crazy, although in some cases I have seen people "turn gay" as a result of already being crazy. I've also seen people switch religions to the same effect.
As for your simplistic view of the evolutionary role of sex, I'd like to point out that reproduction is not always necessary or desirable for members of a species, especially when population growth increases drastically. However, all mammals have a sex drive no matter the desirability of offspring. I'm sure you can see a natural cause for homosexual behavior there. And we have observed homosexual behavior and sex-specific behaviors crossing sexes in many animals for a variety of purposes - everything from ensuring females gestate properly to raising abandoned offspring, to creating the illusion of sex balance when one sex becomes scarce. The "unnatural" label just doesn't stick any more.
Jesus Christ, did you just cut and paste a previous uninformed post about this topic?
You're getting warmer, but you still aren't quite on the money yet. A video game console isn't a piece of AV equipment; it's a toy. As such, it should be able to deal with running on top of a pile of clothes in a kid's room, on the floor, on a stack of pizza boxes, stacked on top of other gaming hardware, pretty much anywhere. It also needs to be able to withstand being kicked, having the wires pull out suddenly, being gnawed on by pets, etc. No matter how much shiny plastic we may cover it in, we cannot hide the fact that play is messy.
Dare I go so far as to point out that Nintendo is the only major player in the console market that has experience making toys?
Yet, this information is important. We have seen so many reasons to doubt the words of our elected leaders, at this point the American people need to know. If these wiretaps didn't involve national security - if they were political or commercial in nature, then the American public - not a Congressional committee, not an investigative board, not the Supreme court, the American public need to know about it. Our vote decides the fate of this country, and it would be a travesty of democracy for our elected leaders to force those votes to go forth uninformed.
(Also, I seriously doubt that if the NSA is following any truly dangerous terrorists in the United States with this program, that they would have any trouble detaining him/her as soon as they had reason to suspect that they were dangerous. If they can hold Cat Stevens, I'm sure they could justify detaining a real terrorist, and I highly doubt they would wiretap them for weeks or months and then do nothing.)
I don't think it is. Bejeweled and Zuma are probably the most-played games in the world right now. Animal Crossing and Nintendogs are topping the sales charts. MMOs are quickly becoming the new game stereotype. There are no less than 6 different flavors of The Sims available at Wal-Mart. RPGs are still the most influential games on the market in terms of driving console sales, and it's doubtful that will change in your lifetime. Mario, Zelda, and Metroid alone support about 1/3 of the gaming market.
FPS's are so 1998.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Those double underlined adverlinks have to go. I will not even read your site any further, let alone click your ads, if I see them. They are a blight on your content: invasive, irrelevant and obnoxious. Please get rid of them. Thank you.
I dunno. I hear statements like "Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists," coming out of this war all the time. I'm pretty sure kids can understand that. If nothing else, the people at the top have been watering down the issues to where children can understand them, even when their audience is the adult population.
Then we have the talk shows, where people jaw about how bad their political opponents are and how much they're like the terrorists. Don't tell me a kid has never heard his parents repeat Rush Limbaugh. There are people out there teaching anti-Islamic hatred in the name of preventing terrorism. There are people who are using the war to scare people into buying guns. There's a government that, whenever confronted with their mistakes or their misdeeds, wonder how they could be expected to be virtuous or diligent when there's a war going on.
I think, considering all that, there's just a teensy weensy tiny probability that it might have more of a role in raising violent children than video games do.
Pah. Grim Fandango beats the pants off every adventure game before and since. Although I would also point out that Monkey Island 3 was released just before it, and it's widely considered to be the best in the series. Full Throttle is hardly the "last."
I overestimated and told them 300 feet. Oops.
I sent them a "compliment" with a "tip" to the concerned mother, telling her to call the police or inform a manager if her child is meeting predators in Pictochat, because they have to be close by to communicate in that program. I also told her to tell her kid not to give her friend code out. I was cheery and "helpful" so maybe that'll help them realize what a bunch of idiots they are for running that story.
I honestly can't believe they found a "security expert" who was willing to ignore the fact that it was technically impossible for someone to incite the described scenario over the internet. He lied to get on TV, so, shame on him.
Also, I wish they'd stop saying that the DS is intended to be a childrens' toy. It certainly is something small kids would enjoy, and it certainly is a toy, but a lot of adults have them and enjoy them and get together at PAX to draw penises at each other while getting smashed. It's not like a Leappad or something.
4orty2wo confirmed that they were behind Last Call Poker fairly early on, partly by having Jane McGonigal (a sort of ARG celebrity) show up at live events, but also through press releases and the interviews. From what Jane has been saying lately, she agrees with you, and you're going to see 4orty2wo announcing their presence subtly for future games.
You can usually tell anyway. For example, the entire site design for I Love Bees was similar to Ivy's breakdown page in The Beast, and some of the stories and characterization were very similar between the two. You can also tell a Szulborski game a mile away - the guy has a very distinct style.
In any case, these games are supposed to draw you in with a good hook and compelling story, and since most of them are ads for other products, the creators are going to be as discreet as possible in promoting themselves. It seems silly to advertise when the game itself is an advertisement!
Beat Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Then you can come back and tell me that Nintendo's interface designs are for retards, if you really want to. In fact, I defy you to even beat Pac-Pix.
See, I was the helpless friend in this scenario. I couldn't even play Mario worth shit. Then at some point I picked up a Cube controller and ever since then I've gotten really good at games - not as good as some of my most hardcore friends, but I can beat the snot out of my siblings in Mario Kart.
I think at some point, my natural abilities collided with the difficulty level of the games I was exposed to, and ever since then I've improved both with my game abilities and my hand-eye coordination and control of objects in the real world. So I, for one, think they're right. You aren't necessarily born l33t.
For what it's worth, the Nintendo DS is cracked wide open and people are writing all sorts of fun homebrew for it. (And although this emulator is a favorite, games like this one are also a big hit.)
I refuse to use the term "graphic novel." It's an uppity word used by insecure people to cloak the things that bring them pleasure. Be proud of your comics, dammit!
Advent Children is so last year.
Remember the Law of Inverse Importance:
The less you know about something, the more important it is.
No one allowed to demo Halo 2? Huge midnight madness.
Don't know where the WMDs are? Go to War.
Not sure what this Hot Coffee thing is all about? Bans and shame! Think of the children!
My 16 year old sister - sharp as a tack - pointed out something very interesting in this debate: Why is it that we use the same word - institution - to describe marriage, that we used to defend slavery a hundred years ago?
Because there is no justifiable other reason for the current system. It's simply a habit, an assumption about the way things are going to happen. There are very few habits worth this sort of strain on the population. It would be harder, more disruptive and more dangerous to change the color of all the yield signs in America than to allow gay people to marry.
I agree - more freedom can't but help our people, and that includes the freedom to marry. If anything, it includes that. It's nobody's goddamn business but their own.
A second mom can love her daughter very dearly, but (unless the difference between genders is far more superficial than commonly-accepted evidence seems to indicate) she can never be the girl's father.
The ultimate hypocrisy of this argument is that if any female parent were ever able to adequately act as a father, or any male parent as a mother, you would say that they were breaking the natural order by doing so. So by "never" you really mean, "as long as I have a say in it."
As to fathers, I have seen them do as much harm as good to their children, and great amounts of both. I don't subscribe to the notion that fatherhood is the only thing that holds a family together.
Honestly, there is a lot of good that can come from gay people being open about it in a hostile environment. It confronts anti-gay people with the object of their hate and humanizes it, and can eventually turn communities tolerant over time. So yes, there IS a good reason to be open about it, and I don't think that any of the gay people involved expect NOT to be harassed, but they expect to inure some of the people of the backwards notion that gays are like vampires, werewolves, and the boogeyman - nonexistent but still to be feared. Forming a whole guild full of gay gamers seems like the perfect extension of this.
But even putting this aside, let's remember that this person didn't go to the GMs and bitch and fuss about the omnipresent anti-gay sentiment in the game, demanding that they fix it. She just went off and tried to play with her own crowd, which is how a mature person would handle the situation.
Is it valid to sell or buy a human embryo?
Yes. Fertility clinics do this all the time.
To clone embryos?
Yes, if you want demonstrably repeatable tests, or want to test on known DNA.
To make human-animal hybrids?
Yes, yes, and yes. This is already an integral part of disease research and the production of important hormones and proteins, including insulin. It would be idiotic to get rid of it now.
In other words, maybe the reason people haven't been outlining their point by point objections is that Bush's ENTIRE PROPOSAL is bunk.
A human embryo is a fragile thing, tiny compared to what it will eventually become. It is in it's earliest stages of development where many, many things can go wrong. Just like the butterflies, they can and will die in great numbers. Species with external, freestanding eggs - like butterflies - have a huge larval mortality rate - only 3 or 4 in thousands may survive. In humans, a given fertilized egg has better odds, about a 1 in 4 chance of surviving through birth. But death still claims the majority of humans before they are even born.
So to put it another way: we cannot help but kill the butterflies.
But that is nothing to be sad about. It is part of the way humans exist biologically. Our DNA is almost all junk. We generate millions of genetic deformities. We have to fail many, many times before we experience success. This is part of who we are, and I think too many people take that wholly for granted.
If you don't want to stand out in a crowd, don't call attention to yourself.
Hear hear! And it doesn't stop with gays, either. This goes for all you obnoxious knitting enthusiasts who insist on wearing sweaters, all you Christians in the bible quote t-shirts and all you disgusting Republicans and Democrats who have the nerve to tell me who you support for Governor. How dare you enforce your identity in public! Have you no shame?
Seriously, though. Being comfortable revealing key parts of your identity is a basic social need. This is why Republicans get together for drinks after the convention, football fans have tailgate parties, fans of Penny Arcade get together and game. You may not like what they represent, but that doesn't mean that people who form gay social groups are doing anything out of the ordinary.