Artificial Sperm and Transhumanism

[Frank]

I believe there to be one prominent 'conservative gay-hater' hereabouts. Most folks seem largely indifferent or a 'hooray, be gay, don't hump my leg' (i.e. not quite getting it, or affording gay culture much respect *but* at least not being eejits by persecuting randoms). A happy portion (not a majority, I don't think, but a significant number of folks you'll meet about) are perfectly content with all of the gaiety about. That is 'liberal gay-lovers'; plenty of them too.

Most fall somewhere in the middle.

[jollytiddlywink]

Also, damn, seems like there are a lot of conservative gay-haters up in this. Is that what St. Andrews is like?

I'm not sure that Macgamer is actually a gay-hater, although some of what he's said comes across that way.

There are a small number of gay-hater types around St Andrews, but they are very much a minority, I find. Much like Frank said, most people are quite happy to live and let live, and then there are also plenty of people who are very all in favour of brightening the place up with a bit of gaiety!

So fear not, St Andrews isn't overrun with conservative types.

[macgamer]

Sex is fun but raising children seems to be a long, difficult, expensive and trying 18 years... not to mention 9 months of pregnancy for the lady in question! I would argue, along with Frank, that any concept of procreating to replace ourselves must include the idea of years of child-care. Even biologically speaking, a child is entirely unable to care for itself until the age of at least three or four, and should probably be cared for by its parents at least until the beginning of adolescence, if not up to the age of 18-20, as occurs today. Your idea that 'procreation is fun' leaves out the trials and tribulations of raising the child, which is just as important.

As a result of this great fallacy 'safe sex' or 'free love' which pretends that there are neither responsibilities or implications to one's actions, Britain has seen record numbers of unintended pregnancies, abortions and STIs all the highest in western Europe.

"The purpose of sex." We have a problem here. If you are going to argue that the natural basis of sex is procreation, then you ought, I feel, to explain why science has identified various species which have sex for fun: dolphins being the most famous example, I believe even doing something analogous to oral sex, involving blow-holes. Many types of primates masturbate, and several of them also have sex for fun. One species of primate has sex as a social greeting, a 'hello!' Clearly this is not an activity exclusively for procreation. It obviously has other functions in the animal kingdom, and does so among humans as well. Otherwise couples would cease to have sex the moment the woman had gone through menopause, and gay couples would never have sex at all.

Firstly animals are not moral beings, so their actions cannot be considered good or evil per se. Additionally these particular behaviours are self limiting, that which is a hindrance to perpetuating their genes is selected out or that particular culture dies away.

Pardon me for being difficult, but I'm not interested in common sense. Do you have any evidence?
And if they don't have both genders at home, do you think they never encounter men or women anywhere else in the wider world? At school, on TV, in the supermarket...

I would suggest this article 'Gender Complementarity and Child-rearing: Where Tradition and Science Agree' A. Dean Byrd (2004) J.L. & Fam. Stud. Vol. 6(2) 213 - 235
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=h ... n=journals

You may also be interested in this episode: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Episode_2

If you look up the numbers, you will find that same-sex unions are as stable as any other unions. They are not an untried concept, just one which is not often permitted in this time and place, although that is changing. The sex is not based on recreation any more or less than amongst heterosexual couples, but is rather a physical manifestation of the love and affection in the relationship.
I suggest you tread with great care if you are going to say marriage is a "commitment... to create a new family, which means children." Some married people I know are happy to be married to each other with no children, and unless you have a very odd interpretation of the wedding vows, the Church doesn't expect couples to commit to children, either.

How about some references from you regarding the stability of same sex unions or indeed same sex relationships. Regarding the requirement of the Church for the married couple to have children I refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1652 'By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.' Furthermore, Code of Canon Law §1. For matrimonial consent to exist, the contracting parties must be at least not ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.

I scarcely know where to begin with this... "maladaptive behaviour"... And you seem to imply that gays and lesbians should just sit, celibate and self-loathing, on the sidelines so as not to clutter up your narrow, tidy little definition of sex.
I would like to propose to you that heterosexuality can be understood as a maladaptive practice, whenever heterosexual acts lead to a child. The world is grossly overpopulated, and each additional child that results from a heterosexual act further degrades the biosphere and has a detrimental impact on the health and likely continuation of the human species.

I would not seek the criminalisation of homosexual acts for it is not the state's role to intervene in such matters. However where marriage is concerned, whether it be a faith or civil marriage, by its nature it cannot be a marriage where a union of two persons of the same gender is sought.

Overpopulation that old chestnut:

Well, that was a bit of a joke, but it does make a good point about the inaccuracy of previous predictions. My biggest concern is world resources, especially food and water security. I would not, and neither would the Church for that matter, advocate having as many children as possible to the point where one could not support them.

Abuse of the child -
Yet again: do you have any evidence to support your assertions?

See the aforementioned article.

A note on being judgemental or hating people
Thanks jollytiddlywink for recognising the difference between homophobia and criticism. For the record it was not me who brought this specific line of discussion up, however it is all linked I'm afraid.

I do not wish to come across as judgemental, for I am far from perfect myself. However my views were criticised and I sought to show that why I hold them, at the same time attempting to avoid pointing a metaphorical finger and calling people evil.

I do worry that society seems to be destroying its very foundations: the family. I am also concerned that I and other like minded people will be prevented or convicted for critiquing the philosophy of the state and establishment.

[jollytiddlywink]

edit: post removed because I managed to post the same thing twice.

[jollytiddlywink]

Sex is fun but raising children seems to be a long, difficult, expensive and trying 18 years... not to mention 9 months of pregnancy for the lady in question! I would argue, along with Frank, that any concept of procreating to replace ourselves must include the idea of years of child-care. Even biologically speaking, a child is entirely unable to care for itself until the age of at least three or four, and should probably be cared for by its parents at least until the beginning of adolescence, if not up to the age of 18-20, as occurs today. Your idea that 'procreation is fun' leaves out the trials and tribulations of raising the child, which is just as important.

As a result of this great fallacy 'safe sex' or 'free love' which pretends that there are neither responsibilities or implications to one's actions, Britain has seen record numbers of unintended pregnancies, abortions and STIs all the highest in western Europe.

If you recall, it was you who in one of your earlier posts said that sex was pleasurable because that is necessary for it to be done, in order to encourage procreation. It was you who left out the lack of similar pleasure in the following 9 months of pregnancy and 18 years of child-rearing, not I. If anyone is guilty of such a fallacy, it would be you. But your comment about fallacy fails to address my argument: you are taking a very narrow concept of procreation.

Firstly animals are not moral beings, so their actions cannot be considered good or evil per se. Additionally these particular behaviours are self limiting, that which is a hindrance to perpetuating their genes is selected out or that particular culture dies away.

Why are animals valid comparisons when you use them, but not when other people do? And in any case, dismissing animal actions as being outside a moral framework (an arguable point in itself for some of the more self-aware animals) does not address my argument, which is that there are clear and numerous examples of uses for sex other than for procreation. I was trying to use animals as an example exactly because I felt that would free sex acts from a moral dimension in your eyes, and get you to examine the pure utility of the act for these animals. To suggest that sex in humans also serves purposes other than procreation is obvious, but given the moral and definitional problems that might encounter (your belief that gay sex isn't actually sex, for example), it is more difficult. But still, I would argue that sex has important social, psychological and emotional roles to play for humans and human society. Whether you find these roles morally acceptable or not is irrelevant: that does not alter the fact that sex plays such roles, above, beyond, and often unrelated to the procreative potential of the act.

Pardon me for being difficult, but I'm not interested in common sense. Do you have any evidence?
And if they don't have both genders at home, do you think they never encounter men or women anywhere else in the wider world? At school, on TV, in the supermarket...

I would suggest this article 'Gender Complementarity and Child-rearing: Where Tradition and Science Agree' A. Dean Byrd (2004) J.L. & Fam. Stud. Vol. 6(2) 213 - 235
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=h ... n=journals

You may also be interested in this episode: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Episode_2

I will examine these when I have some more time: I suspect they will take a little time to get to grips with properly.

How about some references from you regarding the stability of same sex unions or indeed same sex relationships. Regarding the requirement of the Church for the married couple to have children I refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1652 'By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory.' Furthermore, Code of Canon Law §1. For matrimonial consent to exist, the contracting parties must be at least not ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.

How about this: http://repositories.cdlib.org/ccpr/olwp/CCPR-066-06/
Its a paper from a Professor at UCLA, examining same-sex relationships across the US on the basis of census data: the abstract says that "Findings indicate broad similarity in predictors of stability among different-sex married and same-sex and different-sex unmarried couples. The odds of being in a long-term relationship relative to different-sex married couples are higher for same-sex couples living in states with sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws, suggesting that supportive social and legal climates do impact relationship stability in couples."

In other words, same-sex partners and relationships are as stable as any other partnerships and relationships, and in areas where they are slightly less so, this correlates with legal discriminations against same-sex partners.
When I said 'the church' I didn't mean the catholic church, but rather Christian churches more generally. And yes, what you cite points heavily to the (catholic) church expecting couples to 'go forth and multiply' but it doesn't require them to! None of the vows I've ever heard require the wife to "love, honour, obey, and get pregnant on a regular basis..." I'll agree that there is an expectation that marriages will produce children, but this does not equal requirement. Presumably you can agree to this, and we can let this point go.

I scarcely know where to begin with this... "maladaptive behaviour"... And you seem to imply that gays and lesbians should just sit, celibate and self-loathing, on the sidelines so as not to clutter up your narrow, tidy little definition of sex.
I would like to propose to you that heterosexuality can be understood as a maladaptive practice, whenever heterosexual acts lead to a child. The world is grossly overpopulated, and each additional child that results from a heterosexual act further degrades the biosphere and has a detrimental impact on the health and likely continuation of the human species.

I would not seek the criminalisation of homosexual acts for it is not the state's role to intervene in such matters. However where marriage is concerned, whether it be a faith or civil marriage, by its nature it cannot be a marriage where a union of two persons of the same gender is sought.

I'm so glad to hear you won't seek to have people's private lives criminalised. How politely condescending of you. You might feel, on the basis of your particular religion, that marriage cannot be a union between two people of the same gender, but this (and I want to make this point excruciatingly clear) has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the recognition, by the state, of a civil union, civil partnership, civil marriage, or other legal commitment between tow people of whatever gender(s). We do not, thankfully, live in a theocratic state, and so religious practice does not have a bearing on what the state can or cannot do or recognise. Marriage is no longer a religious ceremony, but a civil undertaking. You may chose to get married in a church, of course, but it is only a legal marriage once the couple and the minister have gone to a little room at one side and signed the necessary forms. Similarly, it is possible to get married and have nothing to do with a church at any point in the process. Please realise that while you may adhere to your faith, the rest of the world is under no obligation to conform to it!

Overpopulation that old chestnut:

Well, that was a bit of a joke, but it does make a good point about the inaccuracy of previous predictions. My biggest concern is world resources, especially food and water security. I would not, and neither would the Church for that matter, advocate having as many children as possible to the point where one could not support them.

Yes, it was a bit of a joke. It had, as far as I could count, three facts, and none of them were relevant. The only thing of relevance was the un-cited population prediction at the end, which was highly amusing given that the video had just spent its time rubbishing previous population predictions.
Some facts with citations: (all drawn from 'Something New Under the Sun' by John McNeil, copies of which should be in the library)
In AD 0, the world had 200-300 million humans.
The human population of earth hit 1 billion in 1820 (or so).
It hit 2 billion in 1930.
It hit 3 billion in 1950.
It hit 4 billion in 1975.
It hit 5 billion in 1985.
It hit 6 billion by 2000. It is now heading rapidly for 7 billion, and might, for all we know, be nearly there already (there are serious doubts about the accuracy of reported census numbers from India and China).
So, while the 20th century is only 0.00025% of human history, it held no less than 20% of all human-years of life.
Since 1950, the population has grown at rates 50-100 times higher than those which followed the agricultural revolution, and roughly 10,000 times faster than the the rate prior to the invention of agriculture. If today's rate of population growth had begun at the invention of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago, the earth today would be at the centre of a mass of humans many light-years across, and expanding outwards with a radial velocity many times greater than the speed of light.
This numerical growth has come along with enormous per-capita expansion of consumption of food, energy, and resources. The use of energy, per person, has increased 80-fold since 1800, and given the numbers of people and use of energy in the 20th century, it is more likely than not that mankind used more energy between 1900 and 2000 than it had used in the previous 4 million years.
Some simple calculations indicate that if everyone lived like the average UK resident today, it would require 3 planets to support the current world population: allowing room for growing food, providing energy, and properly disposing of waste products.
Overpopulation is hardly a joke. It is a reality. Even if world population does peak in 30 years, as your video claims, it will still be a problem, because overpopulation is not simply a matter of humans, but the resources those humans use. Even if the population began to fall today, it would have to be a catastrophic decline to keep pace with the explosive rise of resource use currently taking place.

Abuse of the child -
Yet again: do you have any evidence to support your assertions?

See the aforementioned article.

So, not setting out to purposefully maximise all possible 'goods' for a child is abuse? Why bother permitting poor parents who can't afford the best schools to have children, then? Why let anyone in poor countries have children if they can't guarantee to feed the child? This argument is rather sad, and doesn't hold up well to scrutiny from a non-dogmatic point of view.

A note on being judgemental or hating people
Thanks jollytiddlywink for recognising the difference between homophobia and criticism. For the record it was not me who brought this specific line of discussion up, however it is all linked I'm afraid.
I do not wish to come across as judgemental, for I am far from perfect myself. However my views were criticised and I sought to show that why I hold them, at the same time attempting to avoid pointing a metaphorical finger and calling people evil.
I do worry that society seems to be destroying its very foundations: the family. I am also concerned that I and other like minded people will be prevented or convicted for critiquing the philosophy of the state and establishment.

I am hoping that you are, indeed, not being judgemental, and I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. But I would warn you that some of what you class as 'criticism' does come across as homophobia, or at least as seriously narrow-minded. Similar arguments, spun the other way, would no doubt make you feel like your religious beliefs were being discriminated against. Nobody here (certainly, I'm not) is arguing against your beliefs, but are certainly arguing against having those beliefs imposed on others (like gay people, who don't care at all whether you think their relationships are valid or not).
Indeed, I suspect that the "I am also concerned that I and other like minded people will be prevented or convicted for critiquing the philosophy of the state and establishment" is evidence that merely arguing the case against imposing religious beliefs on others is enough to activate the 'help! my beliefs are being oppressed' reaction among the religious.

[the Empress]

Actually I *am* arguing against Macgamer's beliefs. They're irrational. To sum up his position: homosexuality is a maladaptive behaviour, sex should only occur between opposite genders in marriage for the sole purpose of producing children (accompanied by a metaphysical 'unity'), same sex partnerships are unstable and same sex and single parents are abusing children. He believes that if a child is raised by only a female parent they will be unable to interact with males. And vice versa. All supported by . . . . Catholic dogma. It's ludicrous.

He was happy to state that opposite gender parenting was 'natural' because it occured in nature when a species has 2 sexes. When it was shown that same sex parenting and homosexuality also existed in nature it was put down as 'maladaptive'.

[jollytiddlywink]

Actually I *am* arguing against Macgamer's beliefs. They're irrational. To sum up his position: homosexuality is a maladaptive behaviour, sex should only occur between opposite genders in marriage for the sole purpose of producing children (accompanied by a metaphysical 'unity'), same sex partnerships are unstable and same sex and single parents are abusing children. He believes that if a child is raised by only a female parent they will be unable to interact with males. And vice versa. All supported by . . . . Catholic dogma. It's ludicrous.

He was happy to state that opposite gender parenting was 'natural' because it occurred in nature when a species has 2 sexes. When it was shown that same sex parenting and homosexuality also existed in nature it was put down as 'maladaptive'.

I'm sorry: I ought to have been clearer. When I said I wasn't arguing against his beliefs, I meant that he was perfectly entitled to hold them. That they are irrational (and discriminatory) can be rapidly demonstrated with some rational argument. Whether he chooses to modify his beliefs in light of this is up to him (somehow I doubt he will). I am, however, happy to attack (and am doing so) his beliefs the moment that he tries to impose them as a template on the lives of others, like single mothers or LGBT people. That's what I meant by 'not attacking his beliefs.' If he earnestly felt that rice was sacred and ought to be worshipped, that would be his own business, but the moment he tried to tell the rest of us were 'maladapted child-abusing sinners' for eating rice, I'd tell him where to get off.
My remark about not attacking beliefs was more an attempt to pre-empt a case of 'persecuted believer' syndrome, which I felt likely to occur, based on his last remarks.

Yes, I did notice that he was happy to cite animal behaviour to back his case, but rejected it when it backed mine.

[the Empress]

I shouldn't post in reply to macgamer - I angrily repeat 'that is illogical' - becoming, briefly, a metaphysical Spock fighting my human emotions *cough*

[jollytiddlywink]

I would suggest this article 'Gender Complementarity and Child-rearing: Where Tradition and Science Agree' A. Dean Byrd (2004) J.L. & Fam. Stud. Vol. 6(2) 213 - 235
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=h ... n=journals

You may also be interested in this episode: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Episode_2

Unless you found a different article than I did, that was a single page introduction. I cannot find anything more than that without subscribing to the journal. The introduction deals exclusively (and with a detectable misogynistic slant) with single parents (mostly single mothers). No mention is made of any other 'family form.' This is a very long way from proving that single parents are abusing their children. Clear evidence, that, for example, 75% of single mothers throw their children under busses, or starve their children, or otherwise abuse them... that would be evidence that single parenting is abusive. This article doesn't go any further than pointing out that single parenting is more difficult. But then again, so is parenting when poor, or when a minority, or when unemployed, or... the list goes on.

Moreover, I would suggest that somebody teaching at a place so heavily dominated by the Mormons might be less than impartial on the issue. Five minutes of digging online revealed that there is a Mormon Institute of Religion on campus (with the largest enrolment of any such facility in the world), faculty members have been fired in the past for allowing a graduation speaker to criticise the LDS (admittedly not recently... but it shows prior form), and the school itself must be considered a 'safe place' for Mormons to go to avoid difficult ideas, given the high percentage that they represent in the student population.

The BBC link you have provided is no longer active.

[jollytiddlywink]

Bump. Everyone seems to have forgotten about this topic, which is a pity. I was rather enjoying the debate.