Again another straw man answer.

Just answer the question at hand.

Why should any society capitulate for such an insignificant demographic group?

Gays make up less then 4% of population.

And for gay marriage the % is even less than 1%
The question really becomes Why should 1% demographic force the 99% to change?

After months offline I just wanted some cat videos and now this...

You know, Bob, I think you are right. I may not be a US citizen but I think there should be an international law, enforced by the UN.
As a species we can not allow morally bankrupt people to define what marriage should be, especially if that definition is ethically questionable and radically diverging from what the Bible, Torah or Quran describe.
Not only are we subjected to this bizarre propaganda of how normal this sickening behaviour is, this agenda is being sold to children as well. Even if we ignore the risk factors and possible fallout from this dangerous interaction with our youth, I think we can't deny that letting somebody that unstable adopt children isn't the best of ideas.
As you point out, this minority has a strong grasp on the media and an even stronger grip around the neck of political systems around the globe. Even our economy isn't safe of their influence which everyone can see everytime they hurt american businesses with their boycotts. Like disgusting, entitled children, they throw tantrums everytime they don't get their will, no mattere what the cost.
You're right, mankind shouldn't capitulate to their demands. I say annul their existing marriages or domestic partnerships and make it illegal for those people to marry. Worldwide.
According to Wikipedia (yes, I know, Wikipedia) there are 7.2 billion humans on earth and the GOP has around 30 million members. That's only 0.4% of the world population. You're right. Why should any society capitulate for such an insignificant demographic group? Why should we allow republicans to marry or recognize their marriages as legally binding? Nobody needs them to procreate.
Having said that, as far as I'm concerned, George W. Bush is a bastard, even by westerosi standards.

You tell me how this is racist...

Actual racist: "Black people can't be leaders."
Obama overhears it and responds: "Yeah, f'ing Obama!"

I'm pretty sure that despite Obama "playing around with" language that could be construed as racist, what he said would not be considered racist by pretty much anyone. It would be pretty damn funny actually because clearly Obama wouldn't sincerely say that about himself, nor black people, and it also pokes fun at that racist statement by pointing out there's a black person who is President of the United States, so clearly black people can be leaders.

Change Obama to David Duke, and yeah, it's now probably racist, and it's not funny at all.

Or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gHz-l40FNQ

Louis CK is saying that in response to Patrice O'Neal's factual account for the origin of a racial slur against Jewish people. Louis CK was very good friends with the late O'Neal, and he's not racist. O'Neal knew that. If you listen to the video, as soon as Louis CK starts his bit before anything that's faux-racist comes out, everyone is immediately laughing, including O'Neal, because they know he's about to insincerely say something horrifically racist to the face of a black person that had he been sincere, it would have been absolutely horrifying, but that's the point - he's absolutely not sincere. That's why it's absolutely hilarious and not racist because everybody knows Louis CK doesn't actually mean that at all.

Intent and context means a lot. When you take that context away, (other things said in that conversation, who is saying it, your knowledge about what they believe, previous conversations that might be references, etc.), the words can appear to be extremely racist, even when they're not.

How do I react when someone jokes about something that involves race? It completely depends on the context, and what I interpret the intent of it is. If I'm joking around generally with my friends like the above, and they say something like, "You know why black people smell? So blind people can hate them, too." We're in a situation we're joking, we already have had actual sincere conversations about race, I know he isn't racist, I know he actually believes that's 100% not true. How do I react? If I found the joke funny, I'd laugh because I'm taking it to mean he's making fun of what some racists believe because I know for a fact he doesn't believe that.

My father-in-law is a different story, because I know the guy, I know he's like a 5-6 on the racist scale, so I don't know if he actually believes black people generally stink or not, and generally inclined to believe he actually believes most or all black people smell. At the very least, I'm uneasy. I'm certainly not going to laugh at it. I'd probably show some kind of disapproval at the least. Completely different context because now, and here's the key, that may have been intended as an actual racist statement about black people. Once you go there, that's not funny.

So, if you consider me slightly racist because I make ironic racist statements as jokes, which I mean as mocking towards racists themselves, rock on. But you better be consistent in your outrage when someone exaggerates they're gonna kill someone when they get frustrated over something insignificant as an example. After all, that's playing around with words that are murderous and violent, so they must be a psychopath or homicidal!

Please note, that was sarcasm.

Why should any society capitulate for such an insignificant demographic group?

Statically speaking Gays are not even on the radar. Gays make up less then 4% of population. Just because gays have a larger demographic in media and hence have a greater opportunity promote their cause still does not change that fact that they are insignificant in the eyes of society.

And WE have decided that gay marriage is wrong and will not be tolerated.

NAMBLA probably has a bigger demographic. Either way should they be recognized?

There are approximately 343,423,668,428,484,681,262 gallons of water in the ocean. The BP Deepwater Horizon dumped around 210,000,000 million of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Insignificant? Acceptable? You do the math.

@radx

As I mentioned in our previous conversations, my expectation is that once significant structural reform goes through, all the things I talked about before - much of the debt will be forgiven to speed up recovery for Greece and the rest of Europe. If that's not the case, then I agree that the policy was misguided. But it's the whole issue of trust again. Debt forgiveness certainly won't come before the fact, especially when a country like Germany is the main decision maker.

Putting that in perspective, I still think Merkel is broadly making the politically realistic best of a bad situation. I mean Merkel herself, from what I have read, is facing not insignificant opposition from a euro-skeptic right. Suppose she were more bold in funding Greece, was thrown out of office, and the policy abruptly reversed, what would that accomplish?

I can't speak to the specifics, but all those examples you mention of corruption and/or bad policy throughout the austerity process do not sound good. I have no doubt there were instances of malpractice or favoritism, and I hope if they are credible, they are investigated. I can only really argue on the merits of the broad intentions of the policy.

I would agree that the general attitude towards the Greeks being lazy and reaping what they sowed is unjustified. As an example, public sector workers did enjoy unjustified job security and there was a generously low retirement age compared to the rest of Europe. But much of the population didn't benefit from that early retirement or work in the public sector. From memory, actually measures like hours worked per capita were roughly in line or higher than the rest of Europe.

But unfortunately the brunt of the repercussions are borne by the populace who at best are responsible for not demanding more from their politicians because like mentioned before, the beneficiaries have emigrated and squirreled their ill gotten money away.

Could some one, please, invent a new word to succinctly describe the feeling of absolute insignificance this jaw-dropping video produces in me.

Oh...so it's OK with you to simplify and 'falsify details' significantly by modeling the earth as a perfect sphere, but not ignore the mathematically insignificant and immeasurably small possible movement of the earth in some direction or another due to multiple immeasurably small gravities?! WHAT?!? ;-)

....Um...1 degree on earth is 111.2 KM, there's such a tiny difference (1 cm+-) they are in the same place for all possible measureable purposes, nothing like 1 deg apart. My scientific calculator won't give an answer, 1 deg * (1cm/111.2km) =0.00deg on it. (OK, it's not hard math...1/11120000 deg.) Because of this, yes, they WOULD cross the imaginary line, AND hit the earth at the same time by any possible measurement. If the smallest distance measureable is FAR larger than the distance they differ by, and the smallest time measureable is MUCH longer than the difference in time they hit, normal (and most abnormal) people say it's exactly the same.

And again...the experiment properly ignores any infinitely tiny immeasurable movement of the earth in ANY random direction for the obvious reasons already stated. There's far more difference based on the precise position of mercury than the position of the bowling ball and feather, especially when they are nearly touching...You know and understand this.

My frustration is that they don't turn this into a push to write your representative. The few million raised by this campaign are absolutely trounced by seemingly insignificant percentage cuts to the NIH budget. We're talking billions of dollars. Relying on the goodness of people's hearts and distributed contributions will not get it done. Awareness is amazing, but people should be aware of the actual numbers, and how much further just a little action from congress could go. While not all the money will go to ALS necessarily, I promise you it will all go to worthy research. Make your ice bucket challenges a challenge to write congress pleading more funding to be directed towards medical research.

Folks: please realize how ignorant you sound when you use the terms like "Crazy People" and "This is what's wrong with America".

@SquidCap - No matter how insane a person appears, they're still on the same spectrum of intelligence and existence that you occupy, and to call them crazy is to dismiss and downplay their differences in perspective. That makes you prejudiced and part of the problem for not trying to understand the intricacies of human beings.

@song77 - In the massive landscape of 'what's wrong with America', this is an insignificant annoyance, and isn't inherently bad or good. Pinning one miniscule aspect of a gripe on a massive and complex system is a mechanism for people to cope with the world, not an answer to the problem as a whole, ever.

I feel like I can take a middleground on the whole tailgating issue, as a commuting biker I tend to experience both ends of the equation quite regularly and IMHO the problem lies in the extremes in attitude.

On the one hand if you drive/ride a lot and have good confidence in the vehicle and roadcraft in general (frequently the case with professional van and truck divers) it can be extremely frustrating when people don't practice good lane and speed discipline. I don't mean people maintaining a decent pace (it's your problem if you want to go faster than posted limits and they don't) I mean people either:
A. Driving below the posted limit (within reason)
B. Accelerating to speed absurdly slowly or slowing to 2mph to take a corner you could hit at 10-20 comfortably
C. Hogging the outside/passing lane because THEY are going as fast as THEY want to go so why should they speed up or slow down to get out of everybodys way? (C**TS!)

Under the above circumstances I understand why people end up tailgating, in fact I think it happens without much of a conscious effort most of the time. They are going so far below the pace the seems reasonable that you close the gap without realising. Getting to this stage is understandable/inevitable, it's what you do next that defines you as a responsible road user:

A responsible driver/rider at this point backs off, the point has already been made to the driver in front. They know they are going slower than you want to go or that you want to pass in the passing lane they are hogging. Sitting on their bumper is not only dangerous to both of you but it's obnoxious and likely to be counter productive. When you see someone driving too close your natural response is to slow down for safety or simply as a fuck you to the other guy. Even if you were about to get out of their way you might change your mind and think "screw you buddy I got the hint but now your just being rude".

When I back away I find people let me through far more often, wheras in the past when i've just tail gated them like a dick it's got me nothing but two angry motorists (and a hugely elevated chance of an incident). The lorry driver could have left a bigger gap but it didn't look that unreasonable (plus lorries have a hard time gaining speed and are naturally inclined (and taught) to preserve it where possible).

It might not be that unfair to suggest he was antagonising the car infront, but it pales into insignificance compared to...

.....the other side of the equation (which blue peugeot falls squarely into) who are generally IMHO far worse/more dangerous. The one's that adopt an imperious and selfish attitude to speed and road position. "I'm going as fast as I want to go and there's car on the inside that I'll pass in about 30seconds so I'm just going to sit in the outside lane going 2mph faster than slow lane traffic, because why should I have to go to the trouble of changing lanes to let someone else go faster than I want to go!"

Touching the brakes to give a tailgater a shock done properly is fine (I might even go so far as to recommend it) but holy shit! I think it'd be dangerous to scrub more than 1 or 2mph never mind an illegal stop on a dual carageway. Even if there was a mechanical reason for stopping it's still illegal to stop there without pulling off to the side.

Either way 45k in damages feels like pretty just deserts. I dearly hope he got at least a 12 month ban to boot. There's slipping up and then there's premeditated dangerous driving!

I usually try to see things from everybody's perspective when it comes to stuff like this but the Peugot driver is so disproportionately stupid and reckless than I can't really even try to defend him/her. I get why they might have been annoyed but that all became irrelevant the moment they tried to cause an accident!

@RedSky

20 billion was just an arbitrarily large number I chose to demonstrate that I think that the world would survive significant population growth beyond what we'll be dealing with in the near future.

The point of no return I was referring to is simply a point where we won't be able to get back to a place where we can sustain human population levels without significant environmental degradation and territorial disputes, among other challenges I'd prefer not to experience.

I do consider things like global warming, the fact that China is buying up land in Africa to feed its population, US foreign policy's competitive focus on securing cheap oil and the large scale destruction of rainforest to make way for single crop agriculture in Brasil to be symptoms of an imbalance in population vs. resources.

I'm not drawing the line at "everyone and stock up at the grocery store/pumps" type destruction before I take notice and preach caution. I think that defining that as a deadline would be irresponsible.

Again, I agree that we could theoretically mechanize the whole world in a way that grows the supply of resources and shares them equitably amongst an enormous human population, but that goes against the type of world I'd want to live in (excessive mechanization of natural resources) and the way human social systems typically work (equitable sharing).

There are various estimates on how much longer exponential human population growth will last, but it has certainly happened on a scale of centuries or decades - blips like baby boomers are just expected outliers within that trend.

But what's more important is that even if population levels peter off, it is consumption - which is the only statistic that really matters because it is the only negative effect of population increase - that will continue to increase exponentially as a greater proportion of the world's population begins to achieve first world living standards.

This is why free trade alone is not enough to solve problems. While it is likely to bring people out of poverty, raise education levels and increase human rights (all very good things), it will also continue to push our overall imprint on the planet in a more exponential direction than I'm comfortable with (one reason being the argument detailed in this video).

But of course I'm also uncomfortable with the prospect of any sort of forced population reduction mechanism, and I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of not raising people out of poverty.

So as I see it the only thing left to mitigate my fears is to place a primary emphasis on Education.

There's a million and one ways to do this: Everything from broad, effectual efforts like getting the Pope to get with the program and endorse contraceptives, to nearly insignificant efforts like arguing with people on the internet in hopes that you contribute some small part to a culture that places some significant emphasis on educating people about the importance of self control and restraint in every type of consumption - family size included.

@gorillaman

Why would we need to quintuple resources by 2100 if population is only forecast to grow 50%? There is no shortage of potential arable land and more would be made room for if food prices were to rise (bringing them back down).

As I said before, I'm not debating environmental damage and climate change need to be addressed. But you address it directly, you don't attempt to reduce the world population to <1Bn ... somehow, like you propose.

No, corporations primarily do cause environmental harm, particularly climate change:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

That's why changing their incentives directly through taxes or emission schemes is the best approach. I would almost say that attempting to reduce your carbon footprint at a individual level is an exercise in self masturbatory indulgence, which while gratifying is completely insignificant. It's the by-products of all the everyday products that you consume during the industrial process that create the vast majority or pollutants.

3rd paragraph - I've already addressed everything there several times here. You simply are not acknowledging the facts:

http://priceofoil.org/2013/11/26/new-analysis-shows-growing-fossil-reserves-shrinking-carbon-budget/
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/nov/26/why-fossil-fuel-reserves-growing-oil-carbon

Does our current reliance on carbon based energy precipitate environmental issues with regards to global warming in the future? Obviously, but an international agreement on raising the cost of it, to reduce our reliance on it, is more likely than an agreement on enforced family size limits.

I don't think anyone's advocating forced population control here.

I only think that people are advocating that a greater emphasis on family planning be incorporated into your prescription for everyone to "control his own activities and teach his neighbor the virtues of his infinitely sustainable choices."

Doing this too fast would be demographic suicide for a lot of complicated reasons, I don't think anyone is denying that, but a very significant organic reduction over the course of a few centuries would be beneficial for humanity and could be reasonably attained. It's certainly less far-fetched than mass colonization of Mars or Venus in the same timeframe.

And that's an important distinction here. We aren't really concerned about the environment here. We're concerned about what's best for us.

The environment is going to shrug us off and incorporate all our plastic, CO2, and evidence of narrowing biodiversity into a few more strata and continue doing its thing. It has survived mass extinctions before.

It's ridiculous to think that we can even destroy the environment. Our population size and its destructive effects would be reduced to insignificance long before we hit a point of no return and the biosphere's existence is even slightly threatened.

We should be framing the argument in terms of how to achieve an environmental equilibrium in which humanity can live in a comfortable and humane manner.

I think we're a lot closer to a point of no return with regards to achieving that goal.

For my money I'd say that exponential population growth isn't pointing us in that direction, and living - as I do - in a rapidly modernizing "second world" country tells me that bringing all eight billion of us to affluence too quickly poses its own significant dangers.

Let's not forget that this videos two main points are that we are demonstrably in a period of exponential growth, and that exponential growth from the limited perspective of the inside can be deceptive. Points of no return that seem far away are in fact very close.

We'll there is still a non-insignificant number of people that think you can catch "the gay"

The same people who think the gay people won't be able to control themselves and rape straight people...cuz you know, they're so hot.