themeatbridge

There was a movie about this last year. It was based on a true story, but strays a bit from what actually happened. It’s pretty good. It’s called Hitman.

I’ve got the opposite problem. My son has always been tall. He’s 11 and he’s 5’8". People have been looking at us sideways for years. I even have a shirt that says

DAD
est: 2013

that I wear it when we go to amusement parks.

Does the term describe yourself? If not, you haven’t reclaimed it.

Some wealthy people don’t give a shit whether you believe they have wealth. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone until and unless you make an offer. Ask questions, and don’t answer questions. Give vague, short responses and neglect to elaborate.

Why do you think you can’t prove Gengis Khan existed?

Claims need proof when there is a call to action. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re from an island or a small town or a big city, unless you’re giving me directions. If you make an extraordinary claim, and you want me to believe you, then I’ll need proof. If you make a mundane claim, then what the fuck do I care if you’re lying? If you claim to have a disease, I’m going to believe you because I’m not a doctor and it costs me nothing to take you at your word.

If you shout “Run, something bad is coming!” I might feel foolish and angry if I later learn you were lying, but I’d rather be foolish and angry than injured or dead. Proof is a luxury when time is of the essence, doubly so when safety is at risk.

There might be some specific nuances to quibnle over, but generally I think we could reach consensus on the guidelines I described.

My hope is that, when the show comes on in a few weeks, they don’t even parody Trump. The actor who plays him reads his statements verbatim, because he’s so far beyond parody.

Let’s not pretend Trump isn’t exactly as racist as Just Don’t Vance.

It’s a reference to spam callers. For a few years, right around when everyone was realizing they shouldn’t answer the phone for unknown callers, it was really common to get calls that, if you picked up, would play a pre-recorded message along the lines of “Hello! We’ve been trying to get in touch with you regarding your car’s extended warranty. You may be entitled to money and blowjobs, and if your warranty expires, your hair will fall out and your car will be repossessed. To speak to a representative, press 1. Por habla Esperanto, marqué νούμερο 二.”

If you pressed 1, you would ostensibly be connected to a high-pressure sales rep trying to sell you a worthless maintenance contract. Nobody is really certain, though, because despite hundreds of millions of people receiving twelve of these calls each day, not one person every stayed on the line longer than “regarding…” In fact, my memory on the end of that message might be a fabrication, because I don’t think I ever heard it.

Sure, he made the ring as asked. But it’s conceivable to me that the customer only talked to one person about his plan, because any sane person would have tried to talk him out of it. And the jeweler could have made a different choice, and then maybe he would be making anniversary rings, or rings for her jealous friends. Instead, there’s a viral image with his stamp on it, and I just realized this is all probably fake anyway. I’m not a smart man.

The children are 5, and he was trying to edit their genes without causing them horrible disfigurations or disease. He was “successful so far” in that the children have not yet experienced any debilitating side effects and haven’t died a painful death.

How is any of that, even in a general sense, in any way justifiable?

He cured a genetic disease. Wtf is wrong with that?!

The hell he did. You need to go back and read what his experiment was. He says he hopes to someday cure a genetic disease. In the meantime, he was just testing to make sure he could edit genes without causing long term health problems which he won’t know until the kids grow up and have them!!

Ethics are not subjective. That’s what makes them “ethics” and not “morals.”

How the hell you gonna get informed consent from a baby you created in a lab?

What the entire fuck are you talking about? There are standards for medical ethics, and this doctor ignored all of them. Vaccines and antibiotics are methodically tested on animals before they are tested on humans. They are tested with informed consent, and in scientifically rigorous conditions.

This doctor modified the genes of unborn embryos in the hopes of creating children who are immune to HIV. He took three discarded embryos, edited their genes, and then implanted them in a womb to be born.

We’ve done similar animal testing, but medical science is nowhere near declaring such interventions as safe for human trials.

The doctor is declaring it a success because the children he created in a lab for the purposes of experimentation have grown up healthy so far, and at 5 years old are showing no adverse effects from the gene editing he did on them.

I think you haven’t read the article. He’s not curing infants of genetic disorders. That’s one hypothetical application of his intervention, but that wasn’t the experiment. He’s trying to make them immune to a virus. Is he going to try to infect them with the virus? Can’t really be sure if it worked with just a blood sample, after all.

It’s weird that I have to even argue this with somebody. Who defends this guy?

The children are healthy so far and his admirable intentions don’t mitigate the fact that he’s experimenting on humans. Even if he is successful (and I hope for the sake of the children he was), it’s still unethical to try.

Like if I wanted to test out my new fireproof spray by spraying it on some puppies and then setting them on fire, it wouldn’t be ethical even if the spray worked.

You’re right about that. I would guess that this ring is a strong indication of the underlying problem, though. Specifically, impulsivity and egocentrism and an unhealthy dose of obtuse carelessness.

Good point, you’re probably right.

Yeah, but like… Bruh, are you sure she’s as into Iron Man as you are? I know it was your first date, but she’s going to have to wear this everywhere. She’s going to show it off to her friends and family and coworkers. This bright red abomination that looks like it came in a box of cereal, that’s going to cost at a minimum $50 thousand dollars. Are. You. Sure?

I feel like the jeweler should have stopped him.

Replace “Haka” with “Lei ceremony” and “LOTR museum” with an observatory.

I sort of had that happen to me. In middle school, someone started a rumor that I was gay. This was early 90s, and I was young, so it bothered me. I was new to the district, and didn’t have many friends, and being called “gay” was something bad in my mind.

But then I suddenly had a bunch of friends who were being really supportive. Some were gay, some were straight, but everyone just encouraged each other to be who they are. I learned a lot from them about acceptance and being myself. Years passed.

But none of them ever asked me if I was gay. Anyone that asked, I would say “no, I’m straight.” Apparently people thought I was in denial.

But then I asked a girl out, and she was like, “Wait, but… Aren’t you gay?” The look on her face is seared into my subconscious. It was a mixture of confusion, betrayal, and contempt. Like I had been pretending to be gay to worm my way into her friendship, all the while being a lecherous creep waiting to strike.

Also it turns out, one of my gay friends was working up the courage to ask me out. It was the talk of the lunch table, except they had been keeping it from me because they didn’t want to embarrass our friend.

So I had to go to that friend and explain that I liked them as a friend, but I was not attracted to men. He then claimed that he wasn’t interested in me, which was really fucking confusing. And then I had to clarify to everyone at the lunch table that I was, and had always been, straight. Which is weird enough, but I had also now rejected one friend and creeped on another.