bitofhope

As in a member of a race of edgelords allergic to sunlight? Very progressive of your mistress to let you post on the internet on your own. Is "Nock" the Undercommon word for mom's basement?

And what does "just over the horizon" mean? According to Radio Yerevan, the horizon is an imaginary line that moves further as you approach it.

I was reminded of a particular anecdote I need to get out of my system.

There was a time on a particular fiction series' fan forum's IRC channel when I had to convince a very enthusiastic teenage fan that the instructions they found on 4chan to open a portal to a parallel world of that particular work of fantasy fiction was actually a method for synthesizing and inhaling poison gas.

The weird part was that they admitted they knew it was probably just a cruel prank, but were still willing to try just in case it was real. We had to actually find and link articles where the same reaction was exhibited as an actual documented suicide method, if an unreliable one at that, to convince them not to go for it.

By my estimate that person was about high school age, almost certainly over 13 and probably over 15. Mostly their behavior seemed normal for the age, certainly overenthusiastic about the fandom and with obvious signs of teenage ennui, but both of those are typical for someone in their mid-teens. It was just this strange incident of extreme gullibility and self-destructive devotion to a fandom that really stuck with me.

I was expecting a spicier Talk page :(

That's kinda funny. If I'm ever in the market for a proprietary chromium-based web browser, they have my interest.

Fuck, I didn't need to be reminded that they named the robot Optimus. Was "Bender" or "Wall-E" too much of a deep cut? Or is it just that Disney's trademark lawyers are scarier than Hasbro and Nvidia combined?

Ok, what next?

Alright, since you're asking nicely, I'll give you a commentated play-by-play just this once. Apologies to @self for playing dad and to everyone else for the wall of text.

Consider the context for starters. V0ldek was talking about how shopping for sperm based on the donor's level of education and occupation is weird and eugenicist and making a jab about how jobs are not genetic.

Your reply pointed out that education and job can be proxies for intellect, which some here might dispute, but which is probably not a foreign concept to anyone here. "[Some] people want clever children" is certainly true, but that doesn't make it any less eugenicist.

It’s kind of weird anyway to have a child with someone random, isn’t it?

This is a question with many layers, and V0ldek picks at one of them. Having your child conceived using a stranger's sperm does not constitute having a child with them, in a cultural sense. Consider a couple who commit to having a child together, opt for IVF (for any of many possible reasons), the mother carries the child to term, gives birth, and then the couple raise the child together. It's pretty damn insensitive to say the mother has had a child with the anonymous donor (this also applies if the mother is single or the number of parents is otherwise not a clear two).

I would add that even if you mean "have a child with sb." in a purely genetic sense and still think the gamete of "someone random" being used for insemination is weird, knowing that "someone random" has a fancy diploma and a highly sought job shouldn't make it less weird.

I think for many women “being inseminated by” IS a big thing.

The awkward phrasing makes it sound like you're talking about a breeding kink or something, which doesn't really help.

It is strictly speaking true, that many women consider the identity of the sperm donor a big deal. That is why fertility clinics are screening for donors with high status and providing information on their education and career. The point is, if a woman is willing to have her child conceived using the sperm of an anonymous doctor or pilot, but not someone with unknown level of education or profession, that is eugenics. To deny or downplay that is either condoning eugenics or denying the woman's agency as a moral actor.

Also it's weird to single out women, because embryo recipient mothers are not the only people for whom, uh '"being inseminated by" is a big thing'. The partners of those women frequently also have eugenicist preferences about the children who may not be their genetic descendants, but will probably still be their children. The system is perpetuated by fertility clinic administrators and doctors of all genders, who practice eugenics either due to their own beliefs or to cater to their customers' eugenic choices.

Charitably, you're being Captain Obvious. "Some women want the ability to choose a champion athlete supermodel with a PhD for IVF sperm donor." Yes, and we're discussing that very thing and why it's a problem.

Uncharitably you make it sound like all them women just be wanting to be impregnated by genius chads so shikataganai I guess.

Yea who would want to live in a dusty, arid, brown and yellow wasteland city like that? Certainly not the "Occupy Mars" guy.

The dark theme is nice, btw.

You're just jealous of my sick microwave oven pendant