Dak

well, if you took actual races, then it's entirely possible that thered be significant intelectual differences. and yeah, there'd be enough time. none of which is possible, tho, with 'pretend' races a race is defined by the commoness of alleles within it, and racial differences = differences in/due to those allele frequencies... as white/black people dont form races, they cant have any common differences in allele frequency that make one more inteligent than the other. eg: you could pick a set of alleles all of which someone would be more likely to have if they were caucasian than mongaloid, so it's possible that either caucasians or mongaloids could be 'superior' in some way to the other, but the same presumptions about certain alleles posessed cannot be made about black/white people, barring the alleles that dictate skin-colour. it's like trying to say that red-heads have evolved crappyer brains, even tho the group 'read-heads' completely ignores meaningful racial and genetic groupings, thus making the statement inpossible. so... afaict, the difference would have to be due to the one difference that you can count on there being between white and black people -- skin colour. maybe melanin (black skin pigmentation) retards mental development or interferes with brain activity, tho i'm sure, were that the case, that we'd have noticed that albino africans were more clever, on average, than other africans, or that white people become more stupid in the summer when they tan.

This is all 'afaik': genetically speaking, you cannot divide humans into two races, 'black' and 'white'. the largest meaningful division you can make is into negros, caucasians, and mongaloids. negroes = black, caucasians = black and white, and mongaloids = mostly white, but also black. so... trying to divvy up humanity into black and white people is pretty meaningless from a genetical pov, as you include one race and parts of two others under 'black', and parts of two races under 'white'. (for an eg: both the british and indians are 'caucasian', even tho 'british' are white and 'indian' black). without white people forming one race, theres little to support the claim that 'white people' have more evolved brains, as they're not going to share any racial traits. as they're not a race.

anally pedantically speaking, its not entirely inposible, as long as theres some kind of species-wide benifit to it. i could imagine oligomorphic species (say, ants, or certain fish) having some sacrificial morphs whos sole job it is to be eaten whilst the rest of the animals escape. fruit is the obvious example of part of a life-form that 'wants' to be eaten. iirc, there are some lizards whos tail is designed to be nutreous and easily detachable, so that if a predator catches it, it'll focus on grabbing and eating the tail while the lizard buggers off and grows a new one that might not translate as 'the lizard wants its tail et', but i guess it'd mind less than, say, i would if you ate my arm. stuff like milk arguably falls under 'stuff animals might not be too fussed if gets consumed'. maybe.

I run this thru a spell-checker, so apologies if i accidentally changed any of your quoted text. I note, with some dismay, that the spell-checker 'corrected' some of my correct spellings into wrong ones, and et some of my full-stops. *sigh* and this is really the crux of my problem, given that 'perceptive as myself' is, in this case, capable of spotting the blindingly obvious. another large part of my complaint is that, as i said, if you share the 'messages' inherent in the advert, you'd have to be quite dumb to gloss over the ridicule placed on the people who share your views, and the ridicule placed upon 'manliness' in order to have the advert re-enforce your views (and thus make it more likely that they'll encourage you to 'do something'). people this stupid will just look at gays, go 'eww, that's icky, and thus wrong. so, here we see a positive correlation between gayness and wrongness, ergo gay = wrong'. in other words, these people will re-enforce their own views simply by seeing gays. so, the intent -- of not encouraging these homophobes -- is noble, but ultimately useless. with these people, actively encouraging either non-homophobia or shutting up are the only ways that will work. it doesn't need to directly affect me in order to affect me. i think glaads actions were stupid, unnecessary, and, ultimately, bad for gays. ergo, it irks me (strangely, for somewhat similar reasons that you are arguing glaad should have been against the advert) it was stuff like this: which made me assume that your point was that this could re-enforce homophobia (and another bit i mentioned in my last post). oh' date=' i agree. but, to a degree, intent is irrelevent (they certainly didn't intend the message to have a negative effect). all I'm saying is that the strongest/sanest interpretation seems, if it says anything insitful at all, to be ridiculing homophobia and/or excessive masculinity. i didn't mean to imply that 'homophobia' would be stopped; my quote could have done with 'some instances of' wedged in there. out of interest, I'd assume the same as normal assault. i know there's no 'sexually aggravated assault', for example. if that's not the case, I'd be interested to hear. don't forget i live in a shitty city in the same country as you do. I'm well aware that, usually, irregardless of motive, towny ****tards get away with assault. no slippery slope fallacy. I'm stating that this level of sanitation (not some hypothetical extended level, but this actual level we're discussing) is too much. strawman right back at you. i wasn't claiming that the issue was that queers are being mocked, rather that one associated issue is that that's how some people will interpret it. which is bad. I'm aware this probably seems somewhat hypocritical, I'll get to that in a bit. sorry, but if you can hold on to the claim that the advert can validly be interpreted as sending a 'gay mutually exclusive with manly' message, then i can hold the equally dubious claim that your quote can be validly interpreted as 'all gays take it up the bum' i think the insinuation is inherent in the complaint. i did say 'ultimately ridiculous' ----- OK, I'll summarise my complaints, rather than just argue against your points, to make my stance a bit clearer. there's a summary down the bottom, if you don't want to read the whole bit, and I'm gonna try to make it scan-readable. I outright acknowledge that there are homophobes, and that this is a problem, with direct negative (and often physical) repercussions on gays. I also acknowledge that certain things can encourage these homophobes, either to act, or to re-enforce their beliefs. I also acknowledge the thrust of glaads complaint, that -- despite the inherent stupidity in doing so -- this advert will, in all likelihood, have 'encouraged homophobia'. i acknowledge that things that encourage homophobia should be suppressed, but with the cadevat that it be done 'within reason'. to elaborate: outright anti-gay hate-speech should be suppressed (barring [acr=freedom of speach]FOS[/acr] issues, e.g. in a political arena). on the other side of the scale, many people, as i said, look at gays, and this re-enforces their homophobia. gay people, therefore, encourage homophobia. i don't think that gay people should be suppressed to prevent them from encouraging homophobia. so, where, broadly speaking, does the cut-off point lye? i think that the 'stupider' someone has to be to get re-enforcement, and the further from re-enforcing non-stupid peoples homophobia the thing is, the more it lyes in the 'don't suppress' area, simply because as you approach a level of stupidity whereby gay people will re-enforce homophobia, it becomes less and less effective, and more and more costly, to suppress the 'encouragement'. this advert, with the inherent problems in getting a re-enforcary effect, is not to blame. at all. hence, i think complaining about it for it's effect is unwarranted (to give another (and admittedly more extreme) example, I'm sure people look at Eddy Izzard, and 'think' "well, he wares a dress, so hes a fag, right? and, look at him -- he wares a dress in public... what kind of ****ed-up, mentally abhorant fag wears a dress in public? so, here we have another clear correlation of homosexuality and wrongness, re-enforcing my homophobia." clearly, i don't think Eddy Izzard should be held accountable for this, yet it's stil undoubtably re-enforcing peoples homophobia. those peoples fault, and those people should be the targets of anyone wishing to fix the problem) so, there's inadequate reason to complain, which is one reason i don't like this complaint. why should normal people be deprived of a potentially funny advert, and mars feel pressure to pull the advert, when the main argument -- that it can re-enforce negative stereotypes -- will only likely be true in people who are capable of looking at pretty much anything innocuous (including gays themselves) and have the negative stereotypes re-enforseenforced anyway? it's just not worth it. the second reason that i dislike this complaint is that enough people will view it as 'them drama-queen fags whining again', and, ironically, will re-enforce negative stereotypes. now, unlike the mars incident, which requires stupidity to re-enforce negative stereotypes, it actually requires a modicum of thought to avoid the implication that gays are whiny, as you have to actually think that, maybe, glaad have a point that you haven't spotted, or they don't represent normal gay people. so, imo, glaad stray into 'encouragement of homophobia that should be suppressed'. don't forget that, in a very real way, glaad represent homosexuals. not only that, but to anyone, homophobe or not, the effect -- that gay people have essentially turned around to strait people and said 'you can't make fun of us like that' -- sends out a very unfriendly message, tho glaads intent should be to foster friendliness betwix gays and the rest of society. 'you can't make fun of us like you make fun of anyone else' does not send out this message. as to why this issue bugs me so much... well, partly i don't like what i perceive to be an action that makes the situation with homophobia worse, but also its the sheer stupidity of the fact that a group, who's sole job it is to combat homophobia, have arguably made homophobia worse. sheer stupidity that hurts people annoys me mightily. uber-succinct summary: people who are negatively effected by the advert will unavoidably be homophobic, to a level that is effectively unchanged by the advert. putting pressure on mars to remove the advert is, therefore, not worth the (admittedly small) cost in terms of mars' money and hassle, along with stopping people having a chuckle at a lame ad. conversely, glaad represents homosexuals, and, by complaining without good reason -- or at least in a way which will understandably be viewed as without good reason -- they are representing homosexuals as whiny, and wanting 'special treatment' that other groups are not afforded (PC diktat of 'do not mock', so to speak), and are thus arguably misrepresenting gays, and enforcing negative prejudices in a way that is not entirely blameable on the person who's prejudices are being re-enforced. unlike the mars ad. which is. so, yeah, hopefully that clarifies my stance. sorry the post was so long (again)

this be homework, methinks think about the process of turning DNA --> protiens, and it should be obvious what bits of DNA are needed for that process to happen, but isn't there

alright, chill i was trying to get my punctuation and grama up to tolerable levels, to counterbalance my spelling. see, i do make an effort. i just know a dead horse when i see one. but if they're interpretation is incorrect and unjustified (which i'm arguing it is), their complaint is unjustified. they are ideots. they are the butt of the joke. they are saying that homosexuality is not manly, and they are demonstrating manlyness by pulling out chest hair. to interpret this as 'gays are not manly' would be to accept that buffoons are advertisers charector-type of choice for dispensing truths, and to interpret manlyness as good would require that you accept that random acts of self-masochism are good. associating the adherence to the incorect truths which you argue this advert could be persieved as supoorting with imbecils is really not suporting said thingys. which is why i feel you'd have to be dumb to honestly interpret it thusly. it needs a teensy little bit to stop them from being whingey bastards who complain for no reason, and who thusly should be ignored imo if it just offends them, for no good reason, which i feel is the case here. see above: the affirmation is being done by buffoons. they are, if anything, ridiculing the incorrect infomation. the bit that started at the top of this page made me think that it was the re-enforsing effect on homophobes that you were worried about. probably jumping from 'prejudiced' and 'bigoted' to 'homophobic'. as a point of ridicule. insinuating, if anything, that its not true in the advertisers opinion. the intent of complaining to an advertiser is to stop advertising, either the one being complained about, or similar ones in the future. unles they were complaining for the sake of having something to do? no. merely that both group x and p should actually have a valid reason to complain, that doesnt rely upon someones stupidity (which it would require to view this advert as suporting the claim it throws ridicule on), or should be ignored. or the beaters could get arrested. and actual homophobia could be stoped. the world would have to be too sanitised to completely cut of 'the source', if people are going to be this unfussy about wether 'the source' supports or ridicules their homophobia (which you are clearly citing here), and as i said the sanitation creates an unfriendly atmosphere itself -- we're winey bitches, and thout shal not mock the mighty queers, 'cos we dont like you enough to let you. my analogy was intended to demonstrait that, at some point, if i am tangently involved in someone hurting someone else, this is not my fault, if the hurters stupidity played a large role. but obviously inmplies anal penetration, wether you meant it to or not. it was quite cool. the light on the end was so powerful i could see it through my abdomen. again, tho, it's the unjustifyability and the insinuation that homosexuality should be comedically off-limits. if someones going to complain, then i think they have to tolerate some slight slights before complaining, otherwize it's all 'me, me, me, nothing can offend me'. that might be because that was my intent. i took a bearly justifyable, but ultimately rediculous, interpretation of your statement and complained on behalf of gays that said interpretation was offensive. i feel this makes up for the toothpicks heh. i think it's a bit naiive to assume that there was no intent on behalf of the complainers to affect a change in advertising habbits, including but not limited to pulling the advert, when they complained. unless the complaint went "we dont like this, but we dont mind if you carry on doing it. just so you know how tolerant we are" worms.

again, this is just one interpretation. remember that the people delivering this message are portrayed as stupid. the message could easyer be 'hey, these stupid people think that pulling chest-hair out is manly, and that manlyness is mutually exclusive with homosexuality. beeeeeeeee liiiiiiiike theeeeeeeeeeeem(?)' in that case, my argument becomes 'so what?' i'm sure that lots of gay people got offended at the (coincidentally pretty realistic) portrail of the responce to homosexuality. i'm sure lots of men/mechanics got offended at the insinuation that they're homophobic dumbasses. i'm sure lots of women with overly-macho husbands got pissed off by the 'reenforsement of their husbands idea that doing stupid things is required to maintain ones masculinity'. barring any malitious intent, actual homophobia, or anything really tasteless (laughing at rape victims, for example), i dont see how the complaint has any strength. it'd boil down to 'i dont like this, therefore it should go away, as opposed to, say, me tolerating the ultimately harmless thing. which is what i demand of people who happen to not like the fact that i'm gay'. for the record, i concider the level of both humour and homophobia to be zero. however, the assumption that it could reenforse peoples homophobia seems to be your justification for gay people getting offended all i'm saying is that if people are offended by the fact that this innocent advert could re-enforce people bigotry -- dispite, like i said, that this involves very selective acceptance of one slight insinuation of the advert whilst ignoring the larger 'exesive masculinity/homophobia are stupid' insinuation -- then they should be offended at, and blame, the homophobes, not mars. if that sounds stupid, then bear in mind that we're talking about an advert that can easier be interpreted as anti-homphobic than it can as homophobic. this is approaching the 'ban rock music cos, to some people, theres a satanic message' crap. undoubtably, for some people, rock music leads to violence and murder, but at some point blame has to rest on the individual, not the circumstance nor whatever otherwize non-malitiouse thing that they, in their stupidity, allow to sway them to an unintended and ultimately rediculous result (hey, music tells me to kill people, i think i will = you would have anyway + u r dum; hey, these dofuses hate gays... so do i! this proves i'm right = you would think that anyway + r dum); people becoming a little more set in their homophobia as a result of this advert is clearly in the 'it's the individuals fault' camp, imo. and, to clarify, along with blame i think responsability for not doing it lies with the person. to give an extreme example, if i sell toothpicks, it's other peoples responsibility not to shove them up other peoples noses, not mine to not give them the opertunity nor some kind of warped, non-intentional encoragement, that relys upon them being stupid to actually be encoragement. as another example, you (flipantly, i assume, as i'm sure your more familiar with homosexuality than the quote would suggest) insinuated that bum-sex (cock in arse, i believe were your actual words) is neccesary for homosexuality. now, there are enough gay people that have never taken it up the arse (same reasons that several women never do. having had an endoscopy... well, it kinda tickles, but i can see why people wouldn't like it) and who are offended at the insinuation that gay people all take it up the shitter, and the enfosement of this steryotype that your comment would have, that they could complain, using your own logic, that some people would read your comment and basically go 'hey, he's defending the gays, so he's not homophobic, and even he says they all take it up the shitter'. (armchair) psycologically, allowing oneself to be analy violated is the ultimate form of self-degredation (or just some kinkey, imo, but you know what i'm getting at); so, would you retract your comment if gay people complained? not to mention (again) that 'them winey fags pulled the advert 'cos it dared to lightly make fun of their pressious bum-sex rituals' is arguably more damaging that what little re-enforsement the advert would have done; and you know the kind of people who would have their homophobia re-enforsed by the ad will take that interpretation*. should the gay rights group that complained be held accountable for this? or should it just be put down to some people being, ultimately, stupid and bigoted? i'd say the bigots should be blamed, but your argument seems to suggest that the gay-rights group should retract their complaint so as to not give retards the opertunity to masturbate their homophobia? * hell, i thought 'whiney ****ing fags' when i heard. only slight yet significant difference being that i assume that all the fags who happen to be whiney have grouped up to form an unnessesary-complaining group, whilst homophobes will, of course, assume that all gays are whiney bitches. ---- sorry that was so long.

I've heard that there are people who only eat non-harvested fruit, nuts, and seeds, on the grounds that its only ok to take what nature willingly gives... anything that has to be killed or forsably removed from a lifeform (like milk/fruit that doesn't fall off of it's own accord/etc) is wrong. i believe they're called fruititarians, but i dont know much else (they're the subject of much ridicule, so 90% of what i've heard of them is probably crap)

it might be more relevent when you concider pesticides. i.e., is it ok to eat vegtables that were sprayed with pesticides, or not? I know it's not exactly eating insects, but it's still killing insects in order to feed oneself.

by fitness bonus, i meant the increase in fitness confired unto the organism that posesses the allele, rather than the alleles fitness. I get the above, but when you concider the entire organism, this still seems as if minor fitness bonuses will be watered down... the cap on bad mutations due to error catastrophy and also 'nearly neutral' mutations that mokele directed me towards help a bit, but i'm still having trouble getting my head around how so many alleles are selected for/against at once. the relative fitness of each allele -- ie, the contribution that it actually has upon the organism -- seems somewhat trivial when concidered with all the other alleles. barring big, significant changes in an allele, i'm having trouble seeing how the majority of alleles can be concidered above 'nearly neutral', i suppose. yes, but changing 10 would, which is hardly on par with winning the lottery. i meant >50, sorry. it's not just breeding/mortality. if i have genotype aA and have four kids with someone genotype AA, you'd expect 2 of the kids to have the allele a. however, only one of them could, with a probability of 0.125. this also contributes to 'random divergences from expectation'. the probability of 500 copys of an allele giving rise to 450 copies of an allele would require 50 to randomly not be passed on, through chance or through death, which i doubt is that unlikely given that several thousand alleles are probably present at this frequency, and that it could happen over more than one generation. adaptation is still evolution. 'the change in allele frequencys over time'... if an allele frequency changes, then the species has evolved. take the plague, for example. it increased the frequency of the delta-9 mutation. this change in allele frequency in responce to environmental changes in order to increase the average fitness is evolution, despite delta-9 not becoming fixed. or the fact that humans used to be black, and now they're black or white. i'd still call this evolution, despite that 'white' has not become fixed. if two alleles are at frequency 0.4 and 0.6, and both have equal fitness, will there be pressue on the frequencies to both become 0.5? if yes, i'll go of and refresh myself on HW yes, and you said that it was untrue. I think our majour disagrement is in what counts as an evolutionary change. I certainly dont think that fixation is required. what about an allele with frequency = 0.5 in a population of size = 100? or frequency = 0.1 population size = 5,000? in each case, population size > 50, but the number of organisms with the allele = 50

yes, i get that bit. i'm just having dificulty seeing how this simultaniously works on all the different genes. no, as i'm not talking about polygenic traits -- i'm talking about polytraitic organisms. My point was that the fitness bonus from a single allele seems to be buried by all the other alleles, which seems as if it would make it invisable to NS... My appologies, i worded that poorly. what i meant was, for a given allele A, taking natural selection and current allele frequency into account, you can work out that the next generation should probably have x copies of A (what i was reffering to as 'base chance'). however, by statistical fluke, you could actually have significantly greater or lesser than x copies of A, which is what i'm taking to mean drift. eg, if an allele is stable at a frequency of 0.5, the next gen might have a frequency of 0.4, when it should be 0.5, with the discrepancy being down to random chance/drift. i'm arguing that this can happen in populations < 50, to remind you of the original context. this sounds bizarre... fixation is not neccesary for a frequency change to occour. don't the frequencies of alleles change by random chance, if all else is equal? i wasn't aware we were talking about fixation. your words were 'effect', which i changed to 'significant effect'. your examples pretty much reiterate what i said -- as the number of individuals with an allele increases, the probability of something happening by random chance that will effect the allele frequency decreases. even in a large population i'd have expected an allele with a low enough frequency to be susceptable to significant drift take the original population size of 2,000, and an allele with a frequency of, say, 0.25, making it present in only (roughly) 500 individuals. say the next generation is also 2,000 strong, and only 450 individuals having this trait will be a significant change. the probability of only 450 having the allele by statistical fluke, when we'd expect 500, is high enough that, over a couple of generations, and given how many alleles with f=0.25 there probably are, i'd expect at least one of these alleles to jump/drop significantly in frequency due only to chance (again, what i'm understanding drift to be). compare that with a population size of, say, 10,000,000, meaning an allele with f=0.25 is present in 500,000 organisms, the probability of a comparable shift by chance (from the expected 500,000 to 450,000) comparitavely tiny. eg, i would have thought drift effects populations >50, that drift is likely to have an effect in inverse proportion to the number with a given allele, and that, yes, in small populations, even alleles with frequencies approaching 1 will be susceptable to drift, due to the obviouse relationship between population size and number of individuals with a given allele. do they? that sounds counter-intuitive. if two alleles are equally good, then there should be nothing acting to promote one over the other... i'd have suspected that the most recent one (i.e, the mutant form) would be at a lower frequency, and the frequencies would randomly change?

cheers for all the responses actually, this is what was confusing me. evolution acts upon individuals, but it doesnt affect individuals -- individuals cannot evolve, and, barring a species that clones, evolution cannot act to propogate an individual. eg, just look at a handfull of alleles, with the following arbritrary 'fitness' bonuses: a 13 b 12 c 2 d 15 e 0 f 6 g 21 giving the organism with this very tiny genome an overall fitness of 68. now, lets look at an alternate a allele, which is slightly less good, and has a fitness bonus of only 12. comparing the two alleles: a1: 13 a2: 12 it seems reasonable that a1 will dominate the population. however, if we look at two individuals with these alleles: a1bcdefg = 68 a2bcdefg = 67 Now, the difference seems less relevent. look at two individuals with bigger genomes: a1bc......z = 953 a2bc......z = 952 and the difference looks negligable. works for offspring too: aXb2c1d2....z2 = 947 if aX is a1, then the fitness will be 960; if it's a2 it'll be 959. seems practically irrelevent wether the individual inherits a1 from it's dad, or a2... in the above cases, the contribution of the a allele seems negligable, and thus hard for evolution to spot. hence, i was wondering how evolution 'spots' relatively small fitness bonuses amongst all the other alleles in a genome. I think this makes more sence in my head with the assumption that small improvements/degredations are 'nearly neutral', and the assumption that, untill an allele reaches a certain level within the population, it more-or-less evolves neutrally... tho i'm still having trouble seeing how all these alleles are naturally selected simultaniously. (btw, i'm trying to get a mental model of how it works, not proof that it does... so, if the proof p^2 +2pq + q^2 increases in complexity in an n-power way with each generation and each new allele concidered (which i suspect it does), it's not going to be very good as a mental model ) that'd be (re)fixation of the alternate allele(s). same difference imo euch. now i'm confused isn't drift based on random chance? so, intuitively, from the pov of randomly passing the allele on significantly above/below base chance level*, wouldn't it be more likely to have a significant effect as the number with the allele decreases, and less likey as the number increases, irreguardless of total population size, in the same way that n repetitions of something is more likely to be anomolous when n is small? from a population pov, small would increase drift overall, but even in a large population drift could happen to an individual allele, with the probability of it significantly occouring being higher for low number alleles, but not inpossible for higher-number alleles? as the number of individuals with a certain allele is limited by total population size, then i'd assume a small population (say, a couple of thousand) would limit the allele distribution such as to allow for drift. eg, if population size is a couple of thousand, you could expect a few alleles to be in HWE such that only a few hundered have the allele, which certainly allows for drift, whereas in a population of a few million, a few 10,000s will have that allele, making drift unlikely. i'd expect any two alleles with equal fitness to drift about the place, irreguardless of population size... *including NS stuffage.

^lmao. well, yes. but all we can say from that is that alf garnet was, intent-wize, a good thing, whilst the ad is, at best, neutral. I kinda agree. if it was, say, accidentally homophobic, then i'd be more inclined to say that mars should have checked it's possible interpretations more thoroughly. but, my point with alf garnet is that even an obviously anti-bigotry message can get interpreted as bigoted by bigots, thus re-enforsing thier beliefs. given that, the only way to avoid something that could be interpreted as bigoted would be to avoid anything that refferences gays, women, blacks etc and isn't patently neutral or pro-group. hardly a desireable state of affairs, as it precludes parody, humourous refference, critisism, and parody of bigotry. all im saying is that the burden of responsibility for peoples stupidity should rest with those people. the ad was clearly not homophobic. if people interpret it as such, despite the obvious problems with such an interpretation, then that is their fault, not marses. to clarify, i'm not talking 'people who interpret it as homophobic' such as you are doing, i'm talking people who actually see the advert as 'gufaw, look at the fags, aint they crap'. to actually think the advert is saying that requires missing the rather obvious ridicule that is being layed on the men for being homophobic, sexually insecure, and/or masculine.

the advert was incredibly lame, wasn't it... one might think that mars' intent wasnt for a advert that was memorable due to it's humour. wrong. he attempted to deliver a positive message. however, some people did not recieve this message, and infact recieved completely the opposite. 'cos they were stupid. i don't think this is alf's wrighters fault. the ad attempts, it would seem, to poke fun at overly-masculine people, or just be silly enough to just about justify it's existance in order to get some media coverage for mars, who make chocolate bars by the way. i really dont think theirs any valid homophobic interpretation. it questionably insinuates that masculinity and homosexuality are mutually exclusive (tho, the charectors who are doing the insinuation hardly seem like oracles of trustworthy wizdom), but definately doesn't insinuate that masculinity is good. as with alf garnet, some people will recieve a homophobic message that wasn't even there. 'cos they're stupid. i dont think we should blame mars for this, is my point. more succinctly: if the message wasn't there in the first place, then we can't hold the people who didn't send aforementioned non-existant message accountable for the fact that some people will, in fact, recieve the non-existant message.

maybe they concidered it, and didn't care. if you think mars are at fault because they released something which may re-enforse thick peoples' bigotry, then you are trying to hold mars accountable for other peoples reactions. it's not as if the advert was actually homophobic... are you familiar with alf garnet? he was intended to be an anti-roll model. he was a bigoted, too right-wing, over-nationalistic, racist, homophobic mysoginist. he was portrayed as stupid, and his pov's and 'logic' were intentionally made obviously flawed and self-contradictory. the intire point of his charector was to ridicule, and throw the spot-light on, bigotry in all its forms, espescially those derived from petty closed-mindedness and stupidity. he was supposed to be a shit-head that showed bigotry for what it is. people were supposed to look at him and think 'wow, he's a dick, and his views have no founding in reality. what a weak, pathetic little man this bigot is'. but, lots of people viewed him as a 'lovable, cantankerous old man, not afraid to speak his mind just because it's un-pc'. so... should we hold alf garnets creator accountable for 'not properly concidering what he was unleashing', and giving really, really stupid people the chance to re-enforse bigoted views that, in all honesty, they'd be quite happy even were they not enforsed, or should we just accept that people will, unavoidably, be stupid, and hold stupid and/or bigoted views, and these views will be re-enforsed in stupid ways?

these people will look at the men in the advert acting in a retarded manner in the name of 'masculinity', and this will re-enforse their belief that masculinity is good, and mutually exclusive with homosexuality? to do so would require that they accept the mutual exclusion insinuation, but simultaniously gloss over the masculinity and/or homophobia = stupid insinuation. i'm not saying that people wont do this, but those people are dumb. you can't really hold mars accountable, nor find the advert offensive, just because thick people will selectively interpret the advert so as to re-enforse their bigoted beliefs, whilst glossing over the bits that insult them personally. similarly, i'm sure femnazis will look at the advert and think 'duh, look at how stupid men are, with their stupid masculinity issues'. that can't be helped. bigoted people interpret things in a bigoted manner.

what's wrong with the 'lol, look at the stoopid, sexually insucure, overly-masculine homophobic jocks' interpretation? seriously... it could be viewed as offensive to gays, or as offensive to overly masuclin people (or even to men at a push), or to homophobic bigots. why must we assume it's insulting to gays? I dont think that it 'sends' a 'very negative message', tho people seem capable of recieving this message nonetheless...

lmao 'inteligent' and 'hard-working', tho, are positive traits. 'manly' is questionable as a trait. I'm pretty sure lots of people would agree that 'hard working' and 'inteligent' are desireable, whereas 'manly' isn't neccesarily desireable. So, painting homosexuality as 'unmanly' is: 1/ not inherently insulting, especially as 'manly' was portrayed in the advert (duh. lets inflict pain on ourselves for no reason to reasert our manliness. duh), and 2/ arguably correct. say what you want about 'manly', bum sex with other men is not part of the definition. in fact, thinking about it, it's more insulting to 'manly' men that to gays. to twist your example, how would you react if the joke had two white kids accidentally doing something typically 'black' and then saying 'Quick, act intelligent and hard-working', and who were unflateringly portrayed as slightly stupid buffoons? would that be insulting to blacks, whites, or white bigots?

Well, yeah. I see what you're saying. 'the market' would feel direct feedback from those operating within it, so, if the system were good enough, it would naturally react to fix this problem, then ease off if and when the problem dissapeared. that'd be the most eloquent solution. kinda like comparing evolution to the concept of somehow manually patching each spiecies in responce to chanages in environment -- evolution is better (as long as you dont count 'being extremely harsh' against it ) But, no system is perfect, including the market system. like i said, the market system naturally leads to monopolies and cartels, and anti-competiton behaviour (which break the system imo), child labour, unsafe work conditions, 7-day weeks, undeniably stupid disreguard for preservation of nature (see: british industiral revolution), lying and risking other peoples health in order to make money (see: early america), along with other bad stuff -- like capitalising on peoples poverty in order to get their labour at the cheapest possible rate, even if it's arguably too harsh (12% below poverty line in a developed nation1..? i'm thinking the 5.6 million who make below the new MW2 contribute mightily to that stat) So, theres some manual tinkerage to fix the problems. I agree that manual tinkerage can screw the system up, and that you have to be careful, and that a 'natural' fix by the system itself would be prefferable, but the fact that no natural fix has been forthcoming kinda justifies the manual tinkerage imo. if that makes sence? how would you fix the problem? i know you'd prefer unions and strikes, but you have to acknowledge the fact that none have occoured to solve this problem, and none likely will of their own accord. oh, and little buisness' will get compensatory tax breaks (see source 2) to make up for the new MW. personally, i think the uk way would be a more eloquent way of achieving the same, and given that the capitalist market system (even reigned in, as in the US and UK) lend itself to a 'the ginormouse dogs have et the little dogs' state of affairs, i think some minor tinkerage in the form of tax breaks to small buisnesses might be justified irreguardless of MW. I guess, whilst i share your 'hands off is best' approach, i'm a little less inclined to actually believe that hands-off will work, espescially in this case.

ah, increase by $2.10, not from. that's a little less harsh. $5.15 is still only £2.83 tho... i know stuff is cheaper in your country, but still... by-the-by, you might be interested in this. looks like it's designed to achieve the same thing that the uk's multiple MWs are.

see, this is what i mean. by proporting to represent gays, but whinjing whenever something happens that could, if twisted enough, be viewed as even remotely non-gay-friendly, they effectively represent homosexuals as a bunch of whiney, prissy drama queens.

no. it's homophobaphobic. stop oppressing them. I'm with you, I really don't see the problem, tbh... i bet i can guess most people responce on hearing that a gay rights group opposed it tho: 'effing fags'. honestly, i swear these 'bladeblah rights' groups do more harm than good when they get carried away like this.

yeah, well, i'll agree that that implimentation of MW legislature is a bit stupid. i still think that if an adult does that job, he should be payed minimum wage -- like i said tho, 16 y/o's shouldn't have the same minimum wage. that way, menile tasks like cabinate-stacking can go to kids. small buisnesses get cheap menile labour, kids get work experience, and if a kid can't do it it's not all that menile and an adult gets minimum wage, and it all sorts itself out. eg, In the uk, it's done like this: > 22 £5.35 an hour 18-21 £4.45 16-17 £3.30 <16 no minimum wage http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/pay/national-minimum-wage/index.html that allows a pretty neat balance of ensuring people get payed enough to live on, whilst allowing for the availability of a small cheep (young) workforse. 'kids' jobs are generally done by kids, 'cos they're cheaper than adults. ---- £5.53 is 10.49 US$ btw and your minimum wage increase to $7.25 translates as £3.69 hmm... you were on a minimum of $2.10/hour... thats... £1.07/hour ****ing hell, that can't be right?

wtf are you talking about? you were the one who said that you wanted to hire kids: now i'm a 'piece of work' for sujjesting what you yourself wanted to do? if you hire an adult to do it full-time, pay him enough to survive on. if you hire kids (imo, this is kids work -- crap, low pay, but an easy way for them to demonstrait that they're reliable and get a refferene) you dont/shouldn't have to pay minimum wage. that's good for jobs like the one above, and it's good for the kids too, as it actually gets them enployed despite their lack of refferences/experience/etc. the above plainly hasnt, for one reason or another, happened en mass. so minimum wage. well, that's ok then. money doesn't grow on trees, so, if someones labour isn't demanded, isn't valuable enough for minimum wage, then the enterprise will shut down. if the labout is valuable enough for minimum wage, it wont, and the labourer will get payed. if a job is worth someone getting payed minimum wage, then they'll get payed it to do it. if not, they wont (what, you think MW laws obligate companies to hire people they dont need?). note -- again -- that i'm not against the above, so long as it doesn't result in people having jobs that doesn't pay enough for them to support themselves. I agree small buisness owners are self-enployed. you can try telling them they have to pay themselves a certain amount if you want. if they can't afford to pay anyone -- themselves included -- then they can't afford to pay. so they dont. buisness folds, simple economics. again, you're strawmanning by trying to make out that i'm saying competition is bad. competition is good, but should not result in people getting payed below a certain amount. point out the part where i said no one should have to compete, as opposed to that the effects of competition should have a lower-cap. ? obviously, most jobs are filled, or your country would have 0% unenployment. 12% of the US is below the poverty line -- there certainly aren't enough vacancies in decent jobs to accomodate these 12% or, what, the good jobs have tonnes of vacancies, but poor people dont want to take these decent payed jobs? minimum wage laws make you chose a grown man with families over a 17 year old? how? i was under the impression that minimum wage laws just limit how low you can pay adults per hour, not force you to hire an adult instead of a 17 year old? or are you saying that you have to pay the 17 year old as if he were an adult?

Hmm... I wonder what the point was then? there's no refferer id in the urls, so he's not getting payed by commission. maybe the intent is to googlebomb monsana? maybe, then, we should change the links to read 'poop'.