Trojan condom commercial.

[mattcanning]

Today on A&E I saw a commercial that said 1 in 4 people with HIV don't tell their partner that they have it because they don't know they do - then the commercial went on to plug Trojan, and showed a man kissing a woman

Comments

[zermatt]

Ok a more scientific reply.

There is a big difference between HIV in the Western world, and HIV in Africa. In Africa, almost everyone has it, for the medical reasons you mentioned before. This is the true AIDS epidemic, this is the biggest concern to the world I think.

In the Western world HIV is a gays disease (88%), as you pointed out, but not for the reasons you posted. HIV is a promicuity disease and simple statistics prove it. Most straight couples don't fuck around with hundreds of people.

But look at the scientific studies. Even for gays the chance of catching HIV is tiny. HOWEVER, a sizeable number of gays - and this is politically very incorrect - tends to be oversexed, and fuck everyone and everything, men and women. And this demographic, even if only 5% of the gay community, is spreading HIV among the gay community and among unsuspecting women. As they have sex with thousands of male and female partners, HIV is still spreading.

And the "politically incorrect" propaganda you propose, Matt, makes me want to throw up. It would stigmatize all homosexuals at once, this means the 95% innocent, who just want to get on with their lives. This is IDENTICAL to slander, for example slandering the black people because a small group of them is typically violent and criminal. For your information, Matt Canning, the kind of slander you are proposing is illegal in Europe. You would be promoting hate towards the whole gay community based on prejudice and the actions of a minority.

The solution: educate people CORRECTLY, and stimulate women to demand their partner to use a condom. You never know what's been in his ass.

[mattcanning]

I would consider it slander if it was solely promiscuity that resulted in the increased incidence of HIV for homosexuals. But as I pointed out, scientifically, their sexual activities have a higher transmission efficiency rate than for hetero couples - by far, so by the very nature of what they do sexually, they are at a higher risk for this virus. It's not simply because they are more promiscuous, even though they are as you pointed out. However, I do agree that the risk is relatively low for transmission of HIV amongst homosexuals too, but it is still vastly higher than for heteros and coupled with the greater number of homosexuals currently with HIV, that transmission rate is compounded further.

While I do give some credence to Geoff's comment that homosexuals are in some sense made to seek gratification furtively, the obvious (common sense) reason why they have more unprotected sex is because there is no risk of pregnancy. There are plenty of times where that is the only reason hetero couples use protection. Often, once a woman is on the pill, the amount of unprotectd sex had vastly increases.

Needless to say, the reason why I think HIV awareness commercials should target homosexuals more than heterosexuals are all founded in science, but you do make good points.

[zermatt]

You can apply the same reasoning to black men and criminality.

You cannot stigmatise an entire community because of the actions of 5%. It's slander, it's promoting hatred, and it's illegal.

[mattcanning]

You could do it if you could prove that genetically being black resulted in criminality, as you can show that scientifically, there are greater risk factors for homosexual activity and HIV. It would be the same as saying smoking results in lung cancer.

[zermatt]

Matt, please, you don't need me to get your hands on a peer-reviewed paper for a world renowned sociology conference that proves that black males in America are more likely to end up in criminality.

Maybe male-female discrimination is a better example: I'm sure genetics could prove at lot of things, but that doesn't give you the right to be a chauvenist pig.

I've been really disappointed in you lately, Matt, your ideas border very closely on nazism. And I don't need to tell you that all nazi ideals were supported by scientific proof back in the day. That doesn't make things right.

I am also extremely disappointed in your academic performance. I asked you to proof-read my paper that I am submitting to the single most famous computer vision and pattern recognition conference. You weren't even able to detect blatant spelling mistakes. I asked other academic friends of mine to review the same paper, and their comments and corrections were a world of difference with yours. I may as well never have handed you this paper, because your help was zero. nada. zilch.

(sorry 2 b the 1 2 break this 2 u)

so please take a step back with your academic claims, it's very condescending and narrow-minded.

[mattcanning]

LOL!!! @ "blatant spelling mistakes". Give me a break, there were none. Although I do acknowledge that this paper of yours has to be at the highest standard. I looked at it at an undergrad standard so some slight imperfections didn't cross my mind. In hindsight, yes, there were some flaws, but "blatant" is ridiculous and untrue and I want you to take that back!!

"Matt, please, you don't need me to get your hands on a peer-reviewed paper for a world renowned sociology conference that proves that black males in America are more likely to end up in criminality."

There was another peer reviewed paper which proved some differences between races, e.g., that some races are more intelligent than others (something along these lines). The studies were ironclad and were considered racist by many. I'm not sure why though? If black males were somehow genetically programmed to be more criminal, it doesn't mean I would judge them on an individual basis. If it was indeed a genetic fact, why is it wrong to acknowledge that? I'm not saying it's a fact at all, just using it as an example.

btw, when are you submitting your paper? I was so impressed with it that I wasn't even paying attention to the minor errors it contained. I can go over it more thoroughly tomorrow if you wish.

[zermatt]

Are you fucking kidding me?

blatant:



I'm sure that John would have caught this one. The fact that you missed this obvious typo in a title (!) of a section, is mind boggling, pretty much in the same ball park as John fucking up that riddle. I find it just amazing that any other academic I passed this paper to, had several interesting remarks and found at least a couple of these typos. You provided zero feedback, so you may as well have never read it. So please, stop posing.

[mattcanning]

ic.

And if tomorrow I go through the paper and do exactly as they did, will you take this back>

Stduies hvae shwon that we olny raed the fsrit and lsat letetrs wehn we raed wrods.

[mizer2003]

Because of how easily stastistics are skewed (maybe not the stats themselves but the information that gets reported aftewards), you could actually report that criminality results in more black births.
So...some reports should never be taken at face value.

[mattcanning]

You're correct that some reports shouldn't be taken at face value, and the data regarding HIV transmission efficiency may full well be the same, but it has been fairly extensively studied so I have a strong degree of confidence in the findings. Remember, it has all been published in peer review literature many times. And there are TONS of scientists whose only goal is to destroy the work of other scientists and prove them wrong. That hasn't come up yet though for the HIV data.

[zermatt]

Matt, give us a break, the only reason you are pushing this agenda is your peace of mind.

[mattcanning]

When I read the data, there was definitely some relief. What I was thinking was that there was one less thing to worry about. Perhaps you are unaware of the extent North American youth are brainwashed by propaganda. As you can see from some of the replies in my entries, some people had absolutely no idea of the real figures. They looked at HIV like a plausible risk, when in reality it is as unlikely as getting struck by lightning. Does that sound something to really worry about to you? Sure, be concerned, but it should definitely be more in the back of your mind than anywhere else. If you worry about one extremely unlikely event, shouldn't you worry about every extremely unlikely event?

[zermatt]

Hey man, it's you who's worried, not me.