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Evolution Quiz II: Electric Boogaloo
And we’re back! The second half of this silly test gets increasingly surreal, to the point where I’m thinking more and more that this is just a joke and not a serious argument for creationism. Of course, Poe’s Law tells me that I can’t ever know for sure.
Let’s do this.
8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!
What on Earth is a “stage” of evolution? I wasn’t aware this was graduated somehow. I suppose you could call a single generation a “stage”, which means that they’re asking for a new organ between, say, you and your great-great-great-grandfather. For extra fun, “organ” probably isn’t as simple to define as, say, gaining a spleen.
Why five? Another apparently arbitrary number, though this is is extra weird because it asks for five of something that isn’t sufficiently defined.
Go back and rewrite the question.
9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?
Welcome to the 21st century. I know, I know, you’re really looking for a crocoduck, aren’t you? Except chimeras like that aren’t predicted by evolution, hell they’d be a pretty solid blow against modern evolutionary theory. Evolution is a very gradual process, and every individual critter is a complete animal in its own right, regardless of its ancestry, or whatever its descendents may turn out to be.
10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)
Math solution? Do you really think “more complex” means “more likely built by a creative intelligence”? The first thing we humans do when we want to build something is remove as much complexity as we can. Take your coin example. When we want to make things out of metal, let’s say copper, where do we start? If your answer is “We go to the store and buy some copper”, you aren’t thinking things through. First we need to extract the copper from the earth.
Copper isn’t found in nice, pure lumps. Perhaps the closest we can find to that is the green stone malachite, with is a complex chemical compound that contains lots of copper in it. We can extract the copper from it using a reduction kiln, removing all that complexity so that we can stamp coins in nice pure copper discs.
The complexity of living things is a point in evolution’s favor, unless you want to argue that the creator is a complete moron. (What sadistic lunatic would build the human knee the way it is intentionally?) Living things are not merely complex, they’re unnecessarily so. Making a design weaker than it could be in order to make it more complicated is not a sign of intelligence.
11. Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
Who says they aren’t? I don’t understand this, would you like us to set up a webcam so you can watch the process? Are you suggesting that the clearly eroded surfaces of, say, the Sphinx in Egypt are no longer being eroded because you can’t see the stone wearing away? Good heavens take a cave tour and look at stalagmites that have grown upward over centuries from calcium particles in drops of water!
If I recall correctly the energy in gasoline that moves your car around was first captured from the Sun by plants living four hundred million years ago. That’s not just older than the dinosaurs, it’s farther away from the dinosaurs than the dinosaurs are from us. I think it’s safe to say that fossil fuels are being used faster than they’re being made.
12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
No. That’s simply absurd, especially given the apparently arbitrary numbers. You only allow five “stages” for a whole new organ, but you won’t be satisfied with less than 50 vestigial bits? Fuck you.
But I won’t leave you empty handed. Here’s a link to endogenous retroviruses, bits of our bodies that started as viral infections. We’ve adapted to them so well that now they’re a normal part of us.
13. Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
I think “millions” is likely hyperbole there. I did find a few sites claiming such prizes exist, the largest cash sum was over a million, but on a site that hadn’t updated since 2002. The only one I was able to find any real information about was Kent Hovind’s $250,000 prize ” to anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution.*”
Kent is currently serving a prison term for tax fraud, but his son Eric might be willing to honor this challenge. Except look at the definition used for this challenge:
“* NOTE: When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:
1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).”
Of these, only parts 4 & 5 are relevant to the theory of evolution. Hell, 1 & 2 aren’t even in the field of biology, and 3 is the realm of abiogenesis, which is probably more chemistry than biology. No single example of evidence could demonstrate all that, heck number 1 isn’t even a meaningful statement under the current big bang models as I understand them. (Which is to say, not very well.) It looks like what Kent really wants is to go back to college.
If this is typical of your “millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution” it’s frankly not worth it. No point playing if it’s clear that the game is rigged.
14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
Under populated?! Right, you’re clearly just pulling my leg now. By what bizarre definition is the world under populated? There is life in every crevice of this planet, we have found life in places we didn’t think it was possible for anything to live. Living things have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere on this world, all that oxygen wasn’t there until the plants got to work. There are creatures living in the bottom of the ocean who do not even get their energy from the Sun.
The coldest tundra, there is life. The driest desert, there is life. Down in the deeps where no light reaches and the pressure is a thousand times the atmosphere we live in, we still find life. There is a lake in Antarctica that is frozen over the year round, and yet life survives within.
Oh right, you think everything’s about humans. Well, there are seven billion of us, how many do you think there are supposed to be?
15. Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?
Son of a… I’ve wasted all this time answering a troll, haven’t I!
Well, at least I got some writing out of it. See you next time!
Evolution quiz! Written by someone who does not understand evolution. Or quizzes.
In my search for something to blog about I probably would have thought of this ridiculous test eventually, I’ve seen it before at FSTDT. But PZ posted it today, so I’m jumping on it. (Also, check out PZ’s link to see the evolutionary penis-man!)
So here’s my layman’s understanding of this thing. I’ll take it bit by bit, starting with the introduction.
Students, give this test to your teachers. When they fail it, ask them why they are teaching this nonsense!
I think the real purpose of this thing is right there. Cause trouble in classrooms, because teachers are overworked already and school districts tend to shy away from controversy. Make teaching evolution a hassle and maybe nobody will bother. For some reason creationists always seem to think that if there’s any weakness in evolution that they win by default. And for people who have The Truth!™ they sure seem to think it’s vital that nobody gets a good look at the science.
Teachers, give this test to your students if you really want them to know the truth about evolution!
I’m puzzled what they think anyone can learn from this. Even if evolution were nonsense this test does nothing to demonstrate that, it merely asks a bunch of smug questions in bad faith and assumes you’ll jump over to their side once you can’t answer them satisfactorily. Well, let’s get to the actual questions.
1. Which evolved first, male or female?
So you think that men and women are literally different species? Is that where you’re going with this? I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that maybe more than one thing can happen at a time?
2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?
Zero. Get used to “How many millions of years” questions.
3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.
Wait, which side am I supposed to be arguing for again? Actually I think the most common false assumption I’ve seen about radiometric dating is that it’s all carbon dating. I’ve also seen the assumption that we can carbon date fossils or other things without any carbon in them, that radiometric dating is the only way scientists determine age, that scientists believe they can never get an incorrect age from radiometric dating, that underwater snails & similar critters that reuse carbon (and thus date at much older than they are) prove carbon dating doesn’t work. I’ve seen truly bizarre claims that if a single artifact is dated incorrectly then the whole system must be useless, that the possibility of human error means it can’t be trusted, that the lack of human interpretation means it can’t be trusted, and of course Ken Hamm’s insistence that if it disagrees with the Bible it must be wrong, period.
By far my favorite is when they use the Carbon14 test to date something much older than 50,000 years and claim that the result of 50,000 years demonstrates that all radiometric dating is useless. 50,000 years is the upper limit of the Carbon14 test, this is like having a speedometer that only goes up to 65 and insisting that your car can’t go any faster than that. (“No really officer, I was going the speed limit! Your radar gun must be broken…”)
Why 9? This is our first request for an arbitrary number, it will not be the last.
4. Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?
Why in the world do you think one should? Honestly if you think this is likely to happen, you either really don’t understand this theory, or you have a very small-minded view of environmental pressures. Or possibly both, I suppose.
Darwin’s finches went from beaks of many sizes to all big beaks in just a few generations because their environment changed so that big beaks were a serious advantage to getting food. This wasn’t a case of birds magically transforming with sparkly special effects so that they all had big beaks, it was a case of birds without big beaks starving to death.
Now, let’s assume that things change back to the way they were before, where beak size is no longer a significant factor in a bird’s ability to eat. It’s certainly possible that over several generations, the finches would once again have a wide variety of beak sizes, but they wouldn’t be the same as they were before because things are still different. Even if the environment changed back, the birds can’t because they’re not the same birds anymore. The old small beaked birds are gone, their genetic legacy is extinct, so any new small beaked finches would be descended from the big beaked ones that were able to survive before.Whatever varieties they may have, and over time that can get significant, it will not be the same varieties as there once were.
This example is not nearly the same as the question, though, because these finches are all the same species. Expecting a whole species to return of its own accord is simply laughable.
5. Which came first:
…the eye,
…the eyelid,
…the eyebrow,
…the eye sockets,
…the eye muscles,
…the eye lashes,
…the tear ducts,
…the brain’s interpretation of light?
Those are all very complex structures. Probably the beginning of vision was a patch of light-sensitive cells on the skin of sea creatures that probably didn’t have an interpretation of light beyond the simplest sensory input. It certainly wasn’t vision as we know it. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t have brains as we think of them.
6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?
Sigh, once again, more than one thing can happen at a time. You seem to think of evolution as a serial operation, where it works on one thing until it’s “finished” and then moves on to another. Have you noticed that not all animals have all those things? Probably not, these questions are so anthro-centric the author would probably be shocked to learn that cats have three eyelids, or that owls cannot move their eyes to look around but must move their whole heads, or that reptiles have neither eyebrows nor eyelashes.
7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
Because they’re different species. That’s actually one of the definitions of “species”, that they cannot produce fertile offspring with other species. What, you think DNA is like Lego blocks that can be stuck together in different ways even if you’re combining a Pirate set with a Star Wars one? (Space pirates!)
This is getting really long and I’m only halfway through. Also, stomach’s starting to growl, so I’m going to post this half and go get something to eat. Second half should be up late tonight or early tomorrow, see you next time!
Back in the Saddle
Well, I knew I was going to be a little behind and have to play catch-up, but I certainly didn’t expect to take a whole week off! By my count I need six posts to get back up to the line, so I’ll try to manage two or three a day until I’m all caught up. Let’s start easy with a Daily Post subject:
Topic #328:
Would you rather have $50 million or live for an extra 50 years?
Naturally, I have to answer the question with a bunch of questions. What quality of life are we talking about for those 50 extra years? Are we talking 50 active, healthy years, or are you going to take me at the end of my natural life, when I’m bedridden and barely hanging on, and stretch that out for another half century?
Also, what’s with that exchange rate? A million dollars a year seems awfully cheap, I’d have priced a year of life at a hundred million at least in today’s economy. Makes me suspicious of the quality of life thing above.
Am I the only one who gets this choice? Am I looking at 50 years past when everyone else has died? I’m not very good at making new friends, that could get awfully lonely.
Have you noticed that I enjoy dissecting the question more than answering it? not sure what that says about me. Well, unless it really is 50 years in a hospital bed I’d probably take the extra life. I mean, time is the one thing we can’t buy, and we live in such interesting times. I can only wonder what I’ll see in my lifetime already, imagine if I had another half century to see what comes next…
Insomnia for fun and profit!
Haven’t been able to sleep at all tonight (last night?) so this might be a little more surreal than usual. But I’m looking forward to shutting off the blog reminder the very first time I see it today.
First, this article by Joshua Holland responding to the Naomi Wolf Guardian piece I linked yesterday. I can’t do this subject justice right now, I don’t know enough off the top off my head and I’m too tired to trust myself researching both articles. I may post more about this later, but for now I wanted to put this opposing viewpoint link there in case I totally forget about this after I see a shiny object or something.
So let’s turn to something else. Stephen Fry tweets this link about a Catholic exorcist who says that Harry Potter and yoga are evil. Seriously. Read the rest of this entry
Rights and citizenship
Not doing well with the writing today. Here’s a link to a transcript of yet another Republican debate. Reading this, I wonder why they bother. It strikes me as nothing but empty pageantry, mere spectacle to get people applauding, not a debate in any sense that I’m familiar with. But there’s some weird stuff going on in there, and one bit of weirdness jumped out at me.
Here’s a quote from Michele Bachmann:
This is one thing we know about Barack Obama. He has essentially handed over our interrogation of terrorists to the ACLU. He has outsourced it to them. Our CIA has no ability to have any form of interrogation for terrorists.
When the bomber — or the attempted bomber over Detroit, the underwear bomber was intercepted, he was given Miranda warnings within 45 minutes. He was not an American citizen. We don’t give Miranda warnings to terrorists, and we don’t read them their rights. They don’t have any.
It would be unfair to suggest that this is typical for a Republican candidate, Bachmann is out there by anyone’s standards. The idea that the ACLU controls interrogations… I haven’t the slightest idea what she’s saying there. “They aren’t letting us torture suspects anymore”, perhaps? But there’s some stuff in there that’s pretty common thinking and I want to address it. Read the rest of this entry
Searching for Leo Tarvi
I’m still sick, but getting better. Let’s take a look at the search terms that led people here over the last month, that was fun last time. As before, their search terms are in bold, while my commentary is in italic.
leo tarvi I’m sort of relieved and bored that my name is number 1.
cardboard cutouts of people I was curious and googled this myself, this blog doesn’t turn up on the first few pages. Wonder what the story was there.
little janie qs meaning We’re probably happier not knowing.
leo+tarvi = awesome
leo stereotypes People just don’t realize how much they can hurt 😦
scott berkun Writes the Daily Post inspiration things. I really think he makes them vague, subject to much interpretation, and kind weird on purpose. I wonder if he has a big list or if he’s making them up as he goes?
the big fat test Uh oh, hope you remembered to study!
little janie qs It’s such a sad little term, isn’t it? I imagine children chanting it in a mocking singsong way.
things i learned on using tumblr I’m guessing grammar wasn’t one of them.
stoya porn tumblr Is more likely to be found on Tumblr than on WordPress. Just sayin’.
matts safe school law I should really do a followup on that, I found the full text of the law and the religious loophole doesn’t apply to students. In fact, according to that law, only students are capable of bullying.
women fucking I hope you enjoyed my fucking patriarchy series!
leo open source software I’m free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer!
fuck patriarchy facebook Seriously, Facebook! Fuck that patriarchy!
rebecca watson elevator The fallout from that tiny non-event is one of the few things in the last couple years that genuinely shocked me. Seriously, if you’re still giving Watson shit over this, step back, take a deep breath, and re-examine your life.
ubuntu unity sucks Yes, yes it does. (Had more to say here but I accidentally hit the windows key, and now I have to wait five minutes for the search menu to pop up and another three minutes to get rid of it.)
Well, that’s all for now. Tune in next time for whatever random crap I can manage to come up with!
World building
I’ve been thinking of doing a weekly serial story. I want to do more fiction, which pretty much means I want to do any fiction at all, but I’m really bad at coming up with plots and stories and often it feels like the more I try to prepare before writing something the worse it comes out.
So I thought maybe I’d come up with some characters and settings, and then just make stuff up as I went. Add a chapter a week until I wrote myself into a corner. So I’ve been dreaming up stuff for a space opera setting and generally messing around all day.
I still don’t know if I’m actually going to try that, to be honest I think I have more fun dreaming up spaceships and cultures and strange new worlds than actually doing anything with them. But I can certainly think of worse ways to spend a Saturday.
Flooded with evidence
Last night, as I wandered aimlessly through the dark alleyways of the internet, I stumbled across a comment made by a vanishing breed: A true believer in the great global flood story recorded in the Old Testament. Someone who believes the story of Noah’s Ark literally happened.
What interests me about this was an approximate date was given, circa 2400 bc. I’d seen that before, and a quick google search shows that it’s a common year given by flood believers. If there was any method used to calculate this date, it wasn’t mentioned in my brief search. Perhaps generations named in the bible, like Bishop Ussher counting begats to estimate the age of the Earth?
Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more ways I realized how small and provincial the world depicted in the story is. If the entire world had been flooded around 2400bc, killing nearly all land-based life and forcing a global re-population, it wouldn’t just be people from a few scholarly disciplines who knew about it, everyone would know it happened. Read the rest of this entry
Right, first let’s look at the Daily Post topic, then I’ll chatter aimlessly for a bit.
Topic #295:
We all have experiences where after we leave a conversation, or a date ends, we realize something clever we wish we had said.
The French call this l’esprit de l’escalier, which means, roughly, staircase wit (as in, you get the idea for something to say only when you are in the staircase, heading home).
Can you recall moments in your life, at work or at home, where you realize now there was something else you wish you had said? Or done? Make a list.
Sadly, most of the best ones have long vanished from my memory. There was one or two that I nursed for years until it finally faded just recently. But in keeping with the spirit of things I will try to recall as many as I can. I will only provide quotes, no context, even if tomorrow’s topic is to provide that context. Sorry. These are roughly in chronological order. Read the rest of this entry
The mind is a strange thing
I got a flu shot today. While I was getting it I was thinking about how I never look at a needle when I’m giving blood or getting a shot. I don’t have any special terror of needles, I don’t have any trouble with the tiny amount of pain they inflict, but somehow I just can’t watch it. It feels like if I look I’ll chicken out.
I mean, it’s not like it feels any different whether I look or not, and it’s not like I don’t still know exactly what’s going on. I can’t fool myself into thinking that this guy isn’t jamming a needle into my bicep and injecting me with half a milligram of virus corpses just by not watching, but somehow I just have to look away.
This seems especially weird because decorative piercings, which require much larger needles that hurt a lot more, I watch intently the entire time. I don’t have many of those, so maybe it was the novelty of the thing that made the difference there, but that seems wrong too. It seems like unusual situations would make me more squeamish, not less.
In summary, the mind is weird and I don’t understand it. Tune in tomorrow for more weird stuff that I don’t understand!
Breaking with tradition (by copying someone else’s shtick)
Today’s Daily Post topic was to write a list of 5 things you’re afraid to write about. This is impossible for me, as I am terrified of any kind of writing. Which in a way makes tough topics easier for me, since once I get over the initial terror of writing at all there’s little fear left for petty details like “what I am writing about.”
So instead, I’m going to steal an idea from the much-missed Ghastly’s Ghastly Comic (that link is SO not safe for work) and show you what people are typing into search engines that leads them to me. I don’t get enough traffic to do short term versions like once a month, (yet) so this is the entire list since the blog’s creation. I’ll put search terms in bold, with my own commentary in italic.
little janie q It’s such a bizarre phrase.
diaspora social network I found email from them in my spam filter. I’d almost forgotten about it.
leo tarvi That’s me!
kris arden She left a couple of comments, & for a long time her name was the #1 search term. I was worried she might have a stalker.
what does little janie q mean Haven’t a clue.
what is “little janie q” It’s a term of… endearment. Yeah, that’s it.
tumblr stoya No no, this is WordPress. Tumblr’s probably a link or two up.
stoya tumblr Did this get different results?
diaspora review social network I wonder if anyone decided whether or not to try it based on my impressions.
what does “little janie q” mean? It means that sexism is alive & well in the workplace.
gay sex Shouldn’t we get to know each other first?
diaspora social network 2011 Was it different in 2010?
janie q Yup.
leotarvi Yours, truly!
lil janie q They just keep coming!
where does the expression janie q come from If you find out, let me know!
walmart vs women Last I checked, walmart was winning.
what does little janie qs meaning Look, if you’re falling asleep at the keyboard, it might be time to change your approach.
“wars on concepts” I used to think they were stupid things that didn’t work. Now I’m starting to suspect that they’re devious things that work as intended.
diaspora social network aspects Are much like the circles in Google Plus. I wonder if that was inspiration or if Google came up with that independently.
http://www.fourain sex I have no idea.
what mean tarvi Uh oh! Do I sound mean?
joining tumblr It’s neat, but I still prefer Livejournal.
i am getting boring We should start a club!
spider jerusalem rants Yes, yes he does.
rc murphy blog Is totally worth reading. Here’s a link!
tarvi 2011 All year, baby!
tumblr the adventures of Nah, I’ll keep them here.
porn star tumblr I’m sure there’s more than one.
recurring dream story I told mine, what’s yours?
stoya wordpress Has some pretty pictures. Bet you were disappointed with my blog!
leo september 2011 I think that depends on whether your chart adjusts for precession.
how to write a paper on women vs walmart Are you plagiarizing me?
leo legal doc Neither a lawyer nor a doctor. Advice is for entertainment purposes only. Void where prohibited.
i’m a snowflake dammit Right on! Ain’t we all? Preach it!
i learnt tumblr Well good for you, Timmy!
That was more work than I thought it would be. Serves me right, I was thinking I could slack off this time! Well, that’s all for now, I’m going to light some candles, brew some tea, and see about saving Hyrule from the king of evil. Goodnight everyone!
Ah, rain
I love the rain. There’s something magical about water falling from the sky. It cools things down, cleans the air, and brings happy memories of rainy days and the people I spent them with.
I’ve always wanted to get sick of rain. I don’t mean wish it wasn’t raining because of some other plans I had, but just have it rain for so long that I get tired of it and want it to stop. It probably stems from living where I do, where rain is a rare and special thing. I often wonder how I would feel about it if I lived someplace that gets a lot of rain for a year or two. Would I be happier there, or longing for hot sunny days with the same intensity?
Anyways, I have a mystery for you. Due to several factors, mostly the age of this house and my reluctance to put holes in it, there is a long Cat5 network cable running out my window, across the roof and down to another window where it connects me to the internet. So on this nice rainy morning I found water dripping out of it. Seriously, right where the RJ-45 connects, there was water seeping out of the cable. The router narrowly missed getting drenched.
I cut a few drain holes into the outer insulation so it shouldn’t damage anything, but where is it coming from? Everything’s dry up top and I can’t find any holes or breaks in the cable. Either the outer shell’s become porous enough that the water is seeping through it, or it’s condensing in there. Well, or there’s something else that I haven’t thought of or a hole in the cable I missed. I’m leaning towards the first explanation right now, since this never happened before and it seems likely that a break would be obvious.
Come to think of it, most plastics photo-degrade, and this one’s been out on the roof for several years now. That’s a lot of sunlight. It might be time to replace that wire or install wifi on this thing.
Anyways, that’s this morning’s weirdness. I’m going to tag it for Post a Day, which feels a little like cheating but it’s clearly a post and therefore counts! Blog at you later with something completely different.
Two out of four ain’t bad?
The remarkable Greta Christina recently posted an article titled “Wealthy, Handsome, Strong, and with Endless Hard-Ons: Is Masculinity Impossible?.” It’s an interesting read which I recommend, and discusses how sexual stereotypes can be hurtful to men as well as women.
This was still fresh in my mind when I had the opportunity to join Google+ (expect a Social Networking Junkie post about that in the next week). Joining Google+ was very simple for me, I just had to add a few things to my Google Profile and click “Join”. One thing they wanted to know was my sex, and this was not optional.
I thought about it a bit, and realized that that’s one of the things that’s almost always required for just about any internet site you can sign up for. They not only always want to know your sex, but they usually just have a dropdown or radio buttons with the choices of “Male” or “Female”. I guess intersex people just have to knuckle down and choose which box to get squeezed into. (In fairness, Google does include an option for “Other”. Personally I’d prefer just a textbox to say whatever you damn well please in.)
But this isn’t just about recognizing the intersex or the transgender or any other person to whom the answer is not so simple as “M or F”, this irritates me on a deeper level. Why should it matter? What does Facebook care what my chromosomes are, why is it any of Google’s business what’s between my legs? Like so many other things that annoy the fuck out of me, the answer is marketing.
Advertisers want to know. Presumably they use different strategies to try to convince men to buy more shit than women, and they want data both to plan with and to target with. I’m quite sure my Google ads will be different if I edit my profile to give myself a sex change. And what interests me about this is that they aren’t merely working from sexual stereotypes, but actively contributing to them. It’s like a weird feedback loop.
It also feels very unnecessary to me, especially if the typical result is something like this Burger King sandwich in Japan that’s advertised as “suitable for women”. It seems stupid & derisive to treat people as cardboard cutouts like this, especially in a world that’s rapidly leaving gender roles behind. It may even be counterproductive, marketing to stereotypes is only going to appeal to those who feel they fit that stereotype. Anyone else is either buying it in spite of your ad campaign or shopping elsewhere.
More than anything I hate it because it tells people who they are “supposed” to be and how they should act. Men should be obsessed with sports, sex, and shiny toys. Women should be focused on clothes, cooking, and cleaning. Everybody should be as stupid as possible. Intersex people shouldn’t exist. It’s getting broader now, the repertoire of stupid stereotypes is growing, but it’s all still the same shit. And I hate it.
So, in defiance of stereotypes and in solidarity with those who don’t quite fit into the roles or the underwear society would force them into I told Google my sex was “Other”. I don’t want to be in your box, I’ll make my own.
True Blood Season 1 mid-season review
I’m halfway through the first season of True Blood, and that seemed like a good place to write about it a bit. Although the show did intrigue me a bit on its own, I’ve been pretty tired of vampires the last decade so I’m blaming this entirely on Renée.
SPOILERS AHOY! If you haven’t seen this show or read any of the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, you should probably skip this post. You also may want to skip it if you don’t want to read a stream-of-consciousness brain dump of my thoughts & opinions on the show. Seriously, I go on for like 700 words. Read the rest of this entry
The Adventures of Leo Tarvi 