I agree, if a kid is intersex than its best to wait to see what the mental sex of the kid is before doing any surgery. I understand why doctors would want to do surgery right away, its a lot easier from their point of view but the chances of making the wrong choice are basically 50/50. Thats too high. As I undertand doctors usually always decide to make intersex babies girls because its easier.

I think the school invented some for the kids if I'm remembering the article correctly.

Rand Paul is reminding me a lot of McCarthy but without the focus or skill to carry out is witch-hunt.

The problem with the GOP is basically that the John Birch Society has taken over the Republican Party and got themselves elected into Congress and are acting accordingly. Conservatives can't care about governance because for the most part, they don't think that government should do much of anything. Many of them have an even more restricted view of government than most Libertarians.

I'd like to add that the case linked above is not exactly what I'm talking about. In the above linked case, the child was born intersex. What I'm referring to is children with a definite biological sex being referred to in gender neutral terms. That I think is treating children as a sociological experiment.

No, I definitely would not do what the Canadian family is doing. I'd refer to my kid as whatever biological gender they are unless that kid ends up being transgendered, where I will make the switch to the kid's prefered gender. As a parent, I reserve right to select their new name if they are still a minor.

No, I definitely would not do what the Canadian family is doing. I'd refer to my kid as whatever biological gender they are unless that kid ends up being transgendered, where I will make the switch to the kid's prefered gender. As a parent, I reserve right to select their new name if they are still a minor.

I'm mainly thinking about why girls would be into wearing uniforms. Most of the people I knew who desperately wished their schools had uniforms were girls. Boys tended not to get into the entire, wouldn't it be cool if we had to wear uniforms thing.

Yes, I think that most Americans of any political leaning would get creeped out by such levels of uniformity and military like discipline. Even parents into strict discipline are going to think that bowing to teacher is way too much.

Yes and they have to rotate it among themselves during the day. Only one girl and one boy gets to be fully clothed at a given time. The rest go around in their underwear.

I think it should be yes as long as this is a choice of the boy rather than his parents. Several months ago, the NYT ran an article on a pre-school in Sweden that decided to use gender neutral terms to refer to their students rather than gendered terms. Like New Dealer, I think this decision was more than a tad ridiculous and basically activism for the sake of activism. Gender is both a biological and social construct and you should not ignore biology for the sake of political activism.

I'm against using children as sociological projects or as pets or dolls. Each person must be treated as an end in him or herself, as a unique individual.

I heard the same thing when I was in the latter days of my anime fandom. I think the animators keep the kids in uniforms because it makes their jobs easier.

My main opposition to uniforms in American public and private schools is that we seem to suck at designing ones that are at least somewhat fashionable for anything. The Japanese on the other hand are great designers of uniforms. Maybe we should outsource.

I think that a lot of uniform fetihism is a result of anime fandom or Harry Potter. When I was really into anime, I knew a lot of people who wished that they could wear the cool school uniforms that Japanese school children get to wear. I never really had the heart to point out to them that American school districts are very unlikely to select sailor dresses for girls and semi-naval uniforms for boys if they ever inact a uniform policy or anything remotely good looking. American institutions, outside maybe the Navy and the Marines, are really horrible at making attractive uniforms.

Its wrong. Making girls wear dresses on formal occassions is based on outmoded concepts of gender. The school can require them to dress nicely on formal occassions but they should be allowed to with pants if they want to.

I think that scientists should realize that not everybody is coming from their background and needs to understand things at a different level than they do. Its like the Four Sons from the Seder, the answer that works for the wise son is that the same as the one that would work for the other sons like the simple son. Too many scientists want everybody to be a wise son, so they do not have to think of ways to explain things in simpler language or terms.

The problem is that a lot of people in the scientific community seem to conflate the two. Any inability for a lay person to not understand scientific concepts is treated as willful or neglectful ignorance.

What? Most countries in the developed world have fertility rates just at or very bellow the replacement level. Israel being the only country with a fertility rate decently above the replacement level in the developed world. Even many other countries in the developing world are bellow replacement level.

If going to the past had a better survival rate, I'd pick a TV show that starts somewhere in the late 19th century. The late 19th and early 20th centuries always fascinated me so might as well use an opportunity to get to live there.

I think the BBC has a policy about protecting minorities, so as a member of LBGT community your safe in most BBC shows probably.

I agree to but my solution to urban renewal requires a lot of government involvement in city building, both indirect and direct. This is going to require a lot of tax dollars and controversial actions.

Thats why I don't think that the law should have anything to say about it. The degradation aspect of BDSM troubles me. Its not how I think I think that people should do to themselves or other people. There have been plenty examples of entire classes of people subject to petty or not so petty degradation in the real world and it hasn't been pretty. Its not something that should be encouraged.

I agree and disagree with Conor Friedersdorf on this. I do not think that the law should prosecute what consenting adults do between themselves for the most part. At the same time, the sort of acts described in the original article strike me as not being optimal behavior for humans. I place great importance on human dignity. Degrading that dignity too much can't lead to anything good.

I think one potential problem with allowing the sale of organs is that you might create a system where only the rich could afford organ transplants. Assume that there is a free market in organs and that most of the organ sellers are not doing so under duress. One would think that organs would sell for a rather high price, especially since I'd imagine that most people wouldn't be keen on selling their organs even if they could. If organs are very expensive than lower and middle income people are going to be cashed out of the organ market and likely not to get a transplant if they need it.

Oh this is a good one. To that I'd had the idea of a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure is a goal in life. Pleasure is good but I do not think that life should be a pleasure crawl. Hedonism brings no more self-fulfillment than material goods.

I lived in Japan and this is largely correct from my impressions. A lot of Japanese simply don't seem to care about politics the same way that citizens in other countries do. Politics plays a very small part in everyday life and culture. How many Japanese television shows or movies dealt directly with the political process? Very few if any. In most other democracies, the political thriller or procedural is an estabished genre.