Lurker > adjl

rmsgrey posted...

While legitimate sources can't compete on price, pirate sources can't compete on legitimacy. There is value in having a legitimate copy, with the rights and benefits that go along with that (though games publishers seem intent on getting rid of those as much as possible). And the more benefits and services the legitimate source provides, the more pirate sources would have to spend in order to provide an equivalent offering.

While there's some truth to this, there is an upper limit on the level of service that anyone can reasonably provide. If a pirate streaming site remembers which episode you were on, offers recommendations, subtitles, and watch parties, and has good-quality video, there isn't much more that a legit streaming service can do to compete with that, especially considering that a library can be much larger when they don't have to pay licensing fees than when they do.

For streaming, then, the only real options for providing a better legit service are higher video quality (and there isn't that much room for improvement there these days) and relying on anti-piracy efforts to ensure that pirated content is less consistently available. They can't just commit to providing a better service (although I did recently switch from watching a series legitimately on Pluto TV to pirating it because Pluto was just straight up missing an episode, and the pirated version ended up being a better experience overall such that I stuck with it for the rest of the series, so Pluto could have retained me as a viewer by stepping up their game). There is also a need to handicap the level of service piracy can offer so the legit one ends up better by comparison, and that means anti-piracy efforts that interfere with any one service's ability to grow large enough to be a stable competitor.

That said, there are limits to that. If the level of legitimate service provided isn't at least decent, there's little to be gained by paying for it instead of subjecting myself to the jank of piracy. Streaming services in particular are kind of in a race to the bottom at this point, cutting as many corners as they can to get/keep their revenue growing without actually doing anything to become more appealing and justify their ever-increasing costs. That, however, is a market I expect to collapse under its own weight regardless of what happens on the piracy side of things. Trying to take a slice of Netflix's pie and then charge three times as much for that slice as Netflix was charging for a whole pie just isn't sustainable.

Godshammer666 posted...

Smart organization if you ask me. I wish I was that organized

It helps that my girlfriend has raging OCD, but that's one aspect I'm definitely on board with. I'm a big fan of functional organization.

we_dey posted...

Who spends $500 a day? Is this including hotel? I get youre on vacation but food and museums and stuff isnt that expensive

The graphic included lists accommodation, so I guess it does include the hotel (specifically, half of the cost because it assumes double occupancy).

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

Just the reason for me feeling no motivation to watch trailers for it.

You were directed to watch the trailer because it reveals that you're mistaken to believe that the picture is fake. Your personal interest in the game and motivation to consume preview media for it don't factor into that.

You weren't, however, charged. That may be the point of confusion.

In the case of the specific kits' hardware I've saved, it's less about wanting a giant collection of Allen keys and more about knowing that I'll have one of the correct size for the kit handy whenever I need it. Sure, I probably have a dozen of each size Ikea uses and also a screwdriver set from Ikea that includes two hex bits that fit most of their bolts, but because I've paired the tools with their instructions I always know I've got the right size if I pull out the bag for that piece of furniture.

Spying is kind of inescapable with windows, unless you install curtains.

Among all the things people can do to push back against social expectations, I'm never going to get mad at somebody for trying to make their neighbours' lives a little brighter than is considered "seasonally appropriate."

Personally, I've got a bin that holds a bunch of ziploc bags that each hold the instructions and any spare hardware/tools for every furniture kit we own. Whenever we've moved, the hardware from taking that furniture apart goes right into those bags, and we reassemble them on the other end, it's all right there.

"In colloquial speech" typically means interpreting word choices in practical, non-absolutist terms. Speaking colloquially, "no reason" does not actually mean there are no reasons whatsoever (arguably, nothing ever truly happens for no reason, which is why you'll almost never see that phrase in more formal speech that does tend toward literal, unambiguous interpretations), but rather carries the implication that any reasons that might be suggested are not worth considering.

adjl posted...

you don't get to be the one to decide that saving your friend's life is worth risking somebody else's.

"A reason you cannot justify" is typically included under "no reason" in colloquial speech.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2025/04/ea-and-respawn-hit-by-hundreds-of-layoffs-as-new-project-cancelled

Not specifically because the Jedi series was underperforming, but I'll take it. I'm sure that's what's next for Respawn.

David1988 posted...

Even if TC turned down multiple opportunities for stable housing I would have to disagree that gives the government the justification to confiscate his belongings as they see fit.

I would agree with your disagreement. It's not so much that I think it's justified as that I can kind of understand the rationale.

David1988 posted...

The government shouldnt be in the business of strong arming people into housing if thats not what the individual wants,

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that it costs cities money for somebody to be homeless. It varies from individual to individual (obviously somebody who makes a habit of harassing people and getting a visit from police costs more than somebody who keeps to themselves), and a non-trivial portion of that cost is just because random passers-by get uppity about the homeless person's existence instead of minding their own business, but it is in fact more expensive to leave a homeless person on the streets than to house them. Individuals that want to live on the streets of a city instead of being housed cost the city money that they are not paying back, so the city has a vested interest in pushing back against that desire.

Is that right? Hard to say, but I lean toward a no. But what's right and what's practical aren't always the same thing, and if "right" is already a contentious distinction and practicality clearly favours the other option, I can't really blame anyone for preferring the more practical option.

David1988 posted...

As for the TC being mentally ill, Im neither a mental health professional nor have I seen enough of TC or seen him speak of his issues as mental illness so I cant comment.

They've mentioned such issues on a few different occasions, including specifying bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and probably a couple other issues I don't remember off-hand, and those who have been around for a while remember watching the meltdown that ultimately resulted in them living on the streets. Their particular brand of... eccentricity also becomes pretty obvious after seeing a few of their posts and how rapidly the tone shifts between friendly, hostile, and largely unhinged.

I appreciate that you're withholding judgement on a subject with which you're unfamiliar, though. That's a good idea.

David1988 posted...

the government is better off doing positive public service efforts to encourage people seek housing than mafia tactics like taking their s***.

Yes, I agree. As I said, I don't particularly support it, I can just sympathize a bit with getting frustrated and trying to take what seems like an easier way out when the right approach has repeatedly failed. It's still an abuse of power, but I can at least preface "that's not cool dude" with "look, I get where you're coming from, but..."

Oh hey. They're actually satisfied. I give it 1-2 more games before they're expecting 5 million more sales from a sequel than from all previous games combined and they can the series and shutter the studio for "failing to meet expectations," but for now, a win's a win.

The thing about NIMBYs is that they rarely actually care that much once the thing they're upset about happens. They'll cry on and on about how the city couldn't possibly replace the parking on one side of a one-way street with bike lanes when the street parking is never more than 50% full, but once it's actually in there it pretty quickly becomes apparent that there's no real issue and they lose interest. You generally have to really make things worse for them to actually consider moving, not just "change the character of the neighbourhood" by letting one dude paint his house orange.

Revelation34 posted...

Because the bus should go there.

And, in turn, it's easier to justify the investment of adding bus routes to a neighbourhood if it's on track to become dense enough to support them.

I will say that, while I wholeheartedly agree that shuffling homeless people around and making their lives miserable instead of putting that effort toward finding them stable housing is a bad thing, when somebody like TC has turned down multiple opportunities for stable housing in favour of living on the streets, I can't necessarily fault them for trying to make street living more unpleasant for the sake of motivating them back into one of those stable housing opportunities.

Though where in this case the core issue is mental illness taking the form of an addiction to thrill-seeking behaviour, that's not going to be a particularly productive approach and I still can't support it. I'm just marginally more sympathetic than I usually am to blue bacon when it comes to addressing homelessness issues.

MrMelodramatic posted...

any tips for not spending money even though you can

If you can spend the money without interfering with any other aspect of your life, there's no real reason not to. It'd be another story if, say, you were trying to save for a house but kept spending money and therefore having trouble gathering the down payment, but you don't actually need to be frugal for frugality's sake. That can be a hard habit to let go of if you're used to scraping by, but if you're already saving enough, there's no reason to feel guilty about not saving more.

And that's why I feel very comfortable assuming that you didn't read the paper in question and are just linking to a summary article that aligns with your pre-existing beliefs.

That, by the way, is neither good research nor an effective way to support an argument.

Revelation34 posted...

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/5b004d/dont_know_if_this_story_has_been_posted_here_but/

People love to lean on "I should be allowed to speed in a medical emergency," but the fact of the matter is that medical emergencies don't make speeding any safer. A big part of why emergency vehicles have lights and sirens is to attract extra attention and make sure people give them a wide enough berth to make it safe for them to speed. For a random civilian vehicle without any of those things, speeding - especially significantly - puts everyone involved at greater risk of serious injury or death, and quite frankly, you don't get to be the one to decide that saving your friend's life is worth risking somebody else's.

Beyond that, 120 km/h is already doing 20 over the posted limit on the highways that post is talking about. That specifically does allow for going faster than is perhaps advisable in cases like passing an erratic vehicle or an emergency situation.

Muscles posted...

Let's not get carried away here, 5 over is preferable to 5 under, not everyone goes 20+ over.

If you aren't patient enough to handle going 5 under the limit without getting frustrated, you don't have the temperament to belong behind the wheel of heavy machinery.

SinisterSlay posted...

now we have to throw loonies and toonies at the strippers

Makin' it hail.

Zeus posted...

No, it's called reality. If you don't believe that women have an easier time finding a willing sexual partner than men, I'm not sure I or anybody can help you. You can try to spin that however you want, but it's always been true.

That you're framing it as "finding a willing sexual partner" and not "finding a worthwhile sexual partner" is pretty textbook incel. What's next, talking about "sexual market value"?

Revelation34 posted...

All of them.

You answered every single question imaginable with "yes"?

ConfusedTorchic posted...

you also cannot use the argument that it did bad because it was a star wars game in a time where the movies are bad, because the jedi survivor games exist and are universally praised by fans and critics alike (and then star wars andor also being a rousing success as well)

Indeed. I don't know off-hand if EA was happy with how Jedi Survivors performed, but that doesn't mean much of anything because EA's never happy with the performance of a game unless they have to invent new numeric notation to express how massive the sales are. By any reasonable metric, they did quite well.

Star Wars stalling as a franchise and oversaturating the market with content doesn't mean people are actively avoiding the good stuff. It just means they're less likely to put up with mediocre stuff because it's their only chance to experience the franchise in whatever form that piece of media is taking (see also: Hogwarts Legacy). If Ubisoft is blaming Disney for Outlaws flopping, all they're really saying is "your franchise wasn't exciting enough, so we actually would have had to make a good game for it to succeed instead of coasting on brand recognition." Certainly, Disney could be doing better with Star Wars, but let's not pretend that's a legitimate complaint.

The way I see it, if there's ever a question about the validity of a DNR or similar order, it's better to err on the side of saving their life. If somebody ends up living when they would have preferred to die, they can always end their own life as needed (and I would expect such a case to qualify easily for MAID, if needed). If somebody ends up dying when they would have preferred to live, they're out of luck. Given a choice between creating a problem that can be fixed and creating a problem that can't, the former just makes more sense to me.

Now, that comes with the caveat that they have to remain competent enough to express their disappointment after their life has been saved. If the live, but end up vegetative, they can't really kill themselves anymore, so this logic falls apart. In that regard, it's a bit of a gamble, because situations where you can't guarantee their level of competency after resuscitation are pretty common. There's also a fair chance that somebody who wants to die for religious reasons (like a Jehovah's Witness turning down a blood transfusion) would also have religious objections to suicide, but my reasoning there is that if your god would have wanted you to die and you only lived because somebody else interfered, it would make sense to guess that killing yourself to correct that interference would be in line with your god's will (as opposed to the usual religious objection to suicide being because it denies god's wish for you to live).

SinisterSlay posted...

It's actually pretty genius that it worked at all.

Not really. Provided you've got blood circulation, gas exchange, nutrient absorption, and the requisite reproductive bits are intact (which does include the endocrine side of things, so it's a bit more than just "have uterus"), a fetus can grow. Brain death doesn't prevent any of that, so all you really need is basic life support and a braindead person can carry a pregnancy to term.

Heck, if you really wanted to get dystopian about it, you could pretty easily keep braindead women around specifically for the sake of farming babies without having to deal with the challenges of growing them artificially. That would, however, be horrific, and this acknowledgement should not be considered in any way an endorsement of raping braindead women to turn them into baby factories.

Vicaris posted...

and on the other hand Canada standing as one of the few winners, or lesser losers, of global warming.

Though you might want to invest in some N95 masks if you like going outside, given how often a significant chunk of the country is on fire these days.

I recently played through Pac-Man World 2 for the first time, and one of the later levels consists entirely of dark brown pathways over a dark brown swamp that kills you if you walk into it, all with very poor lighting and overall visibility. It took me about five seconds of struggling to figure out where I was going before I just jacked up the brightness on my TV until everything was perfectly clear. Not being able to see where I'm going is only an interesting mechanic if the game gives me a way to work around it and doesn't punish me for failing to differentiate between one dark brown shadow and another. Neither was true in this case, and that game's platforming was janky enough even when I could see where I was going, so I wasn't dealing with poor lighting on top of that.

captpackrat posted...

Default is easiest for navigation. If I'm trying to identify something in particular like the locations of buildings or landmarks, then I'll use satellite. Terrain is handy in rare instances when I need to see the shape of the land.

Pretty much exactly this. When I was moving cross-country and had to figure out which gas stations could accommodate a U-haul truck towing an auto trailer behind it, a combo of satellite and street view was very handy for confirming how much drivable space was available.

Salrite posted...

I don't understand the people who are dead set against "Cooking their own food" as if they're actually doing all the preparation.

I'm pretty sure people who frame this as "cooking their own food" rarely actually cook their own food. Unless it's something like risotto, carbonara, or caramel that requires constant stirring and attention, the part where you put your meat and vegetables in the pot/pan and wait for them to cook is the least labour-intensive part of it. Measuring out the ingredients and prepping them comprises most of the work (to say nothing of washing the dishes afterwards). No, putting a piece of meat on the griddle and waiting for it to turn brown does not mean you're doing all the work.

Zeus posted...

The average married guy isn't merely held in line by fear of consequences, but instead the fact he's not going to have any luck. (Meanwhile, the average married woman can find a willing affair partner without any real problem.)

All that said, to the extent that consequences are a deterrent, a good-looking poor guy is far more likely to cheat than a good-looking rich guy since he has far less to lose. And wealth by itself quite often isn't enough to help somebody find a willing affair partner.

... Did Zeus spend his vacation hanging out in an incel community? He seems more mask-off about it than usual.

faramir77 posted...

If his hyper fixation was on medical research instead of Super Mario 64 I unironically believe he would have cured multiple major diseases at this point.

To be fair, it's not necessarily that his hyperfixation on SM64 is unique (many of the techniques he describes were developed by others; SM64 has an exceptionally active speed/challenge run community), he just has a knack for spelling out the game's quirks and the goings-on in the speedrunning community in exhaustive detail but also a level of clarity that makes them remarkably accessible.

"We specifically design our games so they're less fun if you don't buy the microtransactions, therefore microtransactions help our players experience more fun!"

Funny how that works.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

they are not actually wrong with that statement

some people genuinely do love microtransactions in games

like a lot of people

using ac odyssey as an example, they made more money on the microtransactions than they did on game sales.

I forget the exact numbers, but something like 90% of microtransaction revenue comes from something like 1% of players. Generally speaking, most players don't touch microtransactions or other monetization to any significant degree, a statistic that companies will happily trot out if you try to suggest that they're causing a problem by implementing them (although "most of our players hate this and we extract almost all of our revenue from a small handful of people with impulse control issues" isn't exactly a strong defense).

By understanding the boundary between slippery slope arguments and slippery slope fallacies?

Questionmarktarius posted...

All "criminal justice" must be a cost to society, and never revenue or profit.

On a grand scale, that's usually also the case with fines: they cover a portion of the cost of administrating enforcement and whatever broader consequences the offence could have (e.g. property damage, medical costs, and loss of life from car crashes in the case of speeding). Turning an overall profit is outright dystopian, and "we need to charge fines to pay for the cost of charging you fines" can definitely fall into slippery slope territory without some degree of oversight to make sure the fines are for offences that actually need to be discouraged, but there's still plenty of middle ground between "making a profit off of criminal justice" and "criminal justice is a massive money sink."

Questionmarktarius posted...

Fines are stupid.

They make a certain amount of sense (jail costs money, both directly and in terms of lost productivity, there are only so many options for community service, so fines offer a punishment that's easy to administer), but as everyone's favourite quote from FFT lays out, they essentially just make things illegal for poor people and are framed as the "price to speed" (or whatever) for people than can afford them without batting an eye. Scaling fines to income level can help address that, but then you run into the issue of police only ever setting up speed traps in rich neighbourhoods and letting people speed through poor ones with reckless abandon.

Dikitain posted...

People think I am crazy because I use the speed limiter in my car key that prevents me going faster than 80mph. Like, dude, I drive a 4 cylinder hatchback. If I am going over 80mph I am probably damaging the engine.

But don't you know you're just making yourself a slave to the commie nanny state thought police? Why do you hate freedom?

Muscles posted...

There are plenty of laws that people have no reason to break but still do, so there are at least some people that get uppity about every law, why would it be different for laws things that aren't even that bad?

Do you think there might be a possibility that I was somewhat sarcastically intimating that the people in question are just self-important dinglenuggets who feel entitled to break whatever laws they see fit and are getting pissy not because there's any actual problem, but because they want to keep getting away with doing so?

Revelation34 posted...

Regular employees are not management.

They are if their job is literally "manage this location." I'm not sure why you're trying to act like mods are analogous to cashiers or waiters or something, nor why you're trying to act like no business owner ever would have the backs of front-line employees suggesting that somebody should be banned from the business for misconduct.

Zora_Prince posted...

There's a local ice cream place near me. They had a Poppy Muffin Seed Ice cream. Legit tasted just like a Poppy Seed muffin in Ice Cream form. Was amazing. Unfortunately, that flavor is no longer available and who knows if they'll bring it back :(

There's a local ice cream place that rotates out their flavours every day and offers some really unusual ones. Last time I went, I got Bananas Foster ice cream, which tasted like a banana milkshake with caramel. It was pretty nifty.

Far-Queue posted...

Spoken like someone who's never been fighting a losing battle with their own anus while they rush home to carpet bomb their toilet

Speeding on the highway isn't likely to make a meaningful difference there unless you're travelling so far that your home toilet shouldn't be your first destination anyway (that is, you'll save considerably more time by just using a gas station bathroom than by speeding to get home).

Muscles posted...

You say that like people haven't broken every rule that has ever existed

Why do you think that makes a difference?

josh posted...

Sometimes it's just straight up safer to speed up and overtake someone who can't maintain a constant speed and you end up tailgating them, backing off, speeding up, tailgating.

Just drive the speedlimit ffs.

Sometimes, but usually you don't have to speed that much to achieve that.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Like, if I was having ham or turkey or something with friends and/or family, I would explicitly tell them if they want sides they can bring/make them themselves. Which would include potatoes.

You just serve them a turkey and nothing else?

Are you suggesting that people want functional products when they drop $100k on them?

I expect more wealthy CEOs are cheating than not. The broad attitude of "I'm rich enough to do whatever I want" often isn't held back by marriage vows.

Jen0125 posted...

I thought they said that had like 500k pre-orders

I imagine a few of the people who were waiting on one cancelled them after the first ones rolled out and all the "car washes will brick your cybertruck" and "it's illegal to sell your cybertruck if you decide you don't like it" reports came out.

I also expect that reports of preorders were perhaps a little bit embellished.

Salrite posted...

I'm kind of disappointed in myself for getting digital of TotK. I was kind of on a "convenience" binge for a while because it's so much easier to just have everything preloaded on the system ready to go. But I really should have gotten physical for that game.

My general philosophy for the Switch was to go digital for games that I expected would be handy to have around whenever I had the system because they were the sort that I might want to load up impulsively or on short notice. Mario Kart, Smash, Animal Crossing, Monster Hunter GU (that one didn't end up really fitting the bill, in hindsight)... In practice, I don't really travel that much with my Switch and impromptu Smash sessions don't exactly come up often, plus the case that I almost always bring has space to hold 10 game cards and that could pretty easily pre-empt such possibilities, but the philosophy makes sense to me (I got Smash and AC digitally on the 3DS for the same reason, and the bundled Mario Kart being digital on the Switch 2 work just fine for me).

TotK, though? That's not a game I'll be coming back to unless I decide to replay it, at which point it'll likely be the only Switch game I play (or one of a small number) until I finish it. So I went physical for that one. DK's in the same boat, so provided I can actually find a physical copy (which I should be able to, that Best Buy seems to be an outlier among Best Buys in that other local ones have plenty), I'll go with physical for it.

In the mean time, I've started playing Pikmin 4 for the first time, after owning it for like a year. I'd queued up Glover (N64) and Golf Story (Switch) as the next console games I'd play from my backlog, but I figured Glover was too similar to DK to be a good one to play immediately before getting it, and I wasn't really in the mood for an RPG at the moment.

Best Buy had run out of physical copies when I went to grab one while out getting groceries today. I may go hunt for a copy tomorrow/Sunday, or I may wait until next grocery day to save a trip out.

Not sure how long it's been since the last time I couldn't find a copy of a new game. I did give up on getting TotK from the Gamestop in my then-local mall after seeing a lineup for it, since I didn't have a preorder, but I don't know for sure that they didn't have any non-preorder copies (and Best Buy had plenty on the same day). No idea if that means Best Buy was understocked or if the game's just selling better than expected.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Like what, the bus?
If anything, a bus stop nearby is desirable for a gentrification-goto 5-over-1 apartment block with a pretentious coffee place at ground level.

Welfare office, food bank, social workers, affordable daycare, any form of addiction services... there are quite a few services for low-income people that are in pretty short supply because they rely on external funding sources, and that means they have to pick their neighbourhoods based on where they can achieve the most. If most of the low-income people in a neighbourhood have been driven out, those services are going to go with them and the remaining ones are going to be left out.

Questionmarktarius posted...

are you advocating for slums being protected?

More for doing more to make sure there's somewhere to go if a given neighbourhood becomes unaffordable for long-time residents, including stronger tenant protections, more proactive urban planning, and controls on real estate that ensure an ample supply of housing to keep prices from ballooning out of control (like nuking AirBnB and equity firms that hoard and pass around empty houses like poker chips). It's not nearly as binary as you seem to think it is; you can restrict an area's economic growth to be sustainable and keep the bigger picture in mind without outright saying "only poor people are ever allowed to live here."

Questionmarktarius posted...

That's more a symptom of renting, than gentrification itself.

Renters are certainly the most vulnerable to it, by virtue of not being able to stop the property they rent from being sold or anything like that (which also makes rental-heavy neighbourhoods more susceptible to rapid gentrification, in that it's easier to buy a property and kick the renters out than to buy a house the resident owns). Even past that, though, gentrification often results in local businesses pivoting (whether voluntarily or because of changing market pressures) to be less affordable, services required by low-income people moving elsewhere, and other changes that reflect the changing economic status of the neighbourhood and end up disenfranchising existing residents.

Also, even if the problem is more proximally with renting than with gentrification itself, renting isn't going anywhere, especially in lower-income neighbourhoods. If you drown in a flood, it's not the floodwaters' fault that you can't breathe underwater, but it's still accurate to say that the flood has killed you. Consequently, efforts to keep you from drowning in floods don't consist of you growing gills, they consist of trying to control the floodwaters to reduce the danger they are able to pose to you.

Dikitain posted...

It is a term used in India a lot

I would guess, then, that it's a literal translation of a common term in one or more Indian languages. That can lead to some interesting quirks, like I know French Canadians will sometimes talk in English about "getting their hairs cut" or "closing the lights" because that's a direct translation of how one would say those phrases in French.

Vicaris posted...

Calling it gentrification makes it sound like it's wrong to happen.

Yes and no. For a lot of people, gentrification doesn't mean they get to take advantage of increased economic opportunities and lower crime rates (which are good things), it means they get priced out of their neighbourhood and pushed somewhere worse (if there's even anywhere for them to go), and that's a problem.

The issue with gentrification isn't that it happens at all, it's that it tends to happen more rapidly than the broader market can adapt to and in a relatively small area. Slower, wide-reaching gentrification is great. Rapid, localized gentrification displaces people more quickly than new places can pop up to accept them, which causes issues both on a personal and a societal scale.

KingInBlack posted...

As for statistics, did you know there was an explosion in the population of left-handed people when teachers and priests stopped beating children who used their left hand? For ages left-handedness was considered "Satanic" and "unholy" and "wrong", so children were beaten until they switched hands. This makes it look like left-handedness didn't exist until a certain time period.

Oh, absolutely. You see people similarly insisting that there are "so many" queer people now because of some "gay agenda," seemingly oblivious to the fact that until relatively recently it was extremely common to assault and/or kill people who were openly queer. Assuming that there's some kind of positive selective force at work because the incidence of a given trait increases after removing the negative selective force that had been keeping the incidence down is really terribly silly, but it's also terribly common, especially among people who never experienced the negative selection first-hand and/or believe that it was a good thing.