Pro-Life Means Protect the Earth

[David Floyd]

So do you believe that sex should be regulated by interstate commerce?

Good job, way to miss the point, which was that we engage in calculated risk every day, with the goal being to either improve our lives or increase our enjoyment of it. In many of those calculated risks, the potential consequences are much greater than those of taking the calculated risk of engaging in premarital sex and using a condom. You choose to reduce your overall risk by avoiding premarital sex. Fine, I choose to reduce my overall risk by not driving on the highway, and, if at all possible walking or taking public transportation or a cab (this is true, by the way). I betcha I come out ahead in the long run.

[Ben Kenobi]

In biology that's called the k line, and crossing it is generally bad for any population finding itself there. Altered environment, increased predation, lack of resources (food)... others have already mentioned the likely outcomes of such an increase.

Not talking about that, although just for the idiots out there, I'm aware of it. All I'm saying is that there is a natural limit on human population growth, you aren't very likely to see 20+ kids, but you will see around 10 or so.

Why is this so hard to grok? 10 < infinity.

[Ben Kenobi]

So, then, you do in fact believe that condom use is an effective method - although certainly not the only method - of combating and reducing the spread of STDs?

It's been proven both in the west and abroad that it's incapable of reducing STD transmission.

The reason being, as I've said before, is that people take more risks. All things being equal a condom will protect you better then not wearing one, but if you increase the risk, then it negates whatever protection a condom will provide. Sleep with enough partners, and your risk will actually exceed someone who sleeps without a condom, provided they limit their partners.

[Ben Kenobi]

Good job, way to miss the point, which was that we engage in calculated risk every day, with the goal being to either improve our lives or increase our enjoyment of it.

And my point is that the two are not like each other at all. The roads can be used by everyone. Are you saying that everyone has a ride where you have been?

In many of those calculated risks, the potential consequences are much greater than those of taking the calculated risk of engaging in premarital sex and using a condom. You choose to reduce your overall risk by avoiding premarital sex. Fine, I choose to reduce my overall risk by not driving on the highway, and, if at all possible walking or taking public transportation or a cab (this is true, by the way). I betcha I come out ahead in the long run.

Again, your analogy doesn't hold.

40 thousand people were killed in the last year, out of 4 billion miles travelled. This means that you'd expect a person to be killed in 400 thousand miles driven a year. This is over a thousand miles driven each day. The most I've ever driven is around 25 thousand in a year, or 1/20th. Nowadays, I've driven in the last year a total of about 2 and a half thousand, so 1/200.

500 thousand people have died from AIDS in the USA, since 1981. This means that around 20 thousand every year will die. I'm going to assume that you only have sex with women, which reduces your chances of contracting HIV considerably, to about 23 percent or so.

However, your risk goes up exponentially with every partner. Currently, around 500 thousand people have HIV. This works out to be about 3 in every thousand or so people, of which 23 percent of those are likely to be women. So it would work out to being about 7.5 out of every ten thousand people.

Now, if you've slept with 6 people, that means:

1=1, 2=4, 3=27, 4=256, 5=3125, 6=46625.

You have exposed yourself to 35 people in the last year who have contracted HIV, if you've had sex with 6 partners. More then 6, and you've exposed yourself to exponentially more people. With 5 partners in the last year, you would have exposed yourself to only 2 people.

To have a comparable risk profile to the most I've ever driven while I was working as a delivery driver, you would have had to have 4 partners in the last year. To have a similar risk profile to my current driving, 3 people would give you 4x the risk. Two partners in the last year, would make it just about exactly what my current mileage would give me, taking your public transit into account.

Edit, and public transportation is only 40 percent safer then driving, over similar mileage.

[Imran Siddiqui]

To have a comparable risk profile to the most I've ever driven while I was working as a delivery driver, you would have had to have 4 partners in the last year. To have a similar risk profile to my current driving, 3 people would give you 4x the risk. Two partners in the last year, would make it just about exactly what my current mileage would give me, taking your public transit into account.

To make it a fair comparison, you'd have to drive without airbags, seatbelts, or turn signals - you know to account for "safe driving".

Furthermore, you aren't accounting for if both partners get tested before sex.

[Elok]

Fine. So you are saying I have a 1 in 10 chance of contracting an STD. What are the odds now if I sleep with 10 or more people?

Yeah, that's math.

Well, my computer's calculator is giving me .9^10 as about .38, which sounds a little high but I'm not going to bother with doing it by hand. So, assuming you screwed exclusively people with STDs, and they were so filthy that you were guaranteed to catch it sans condom (not actually true in the real world), you'd have a little less than forty percent chance of escaping it. That's why most people who screw their way through the bargain bin at a Nevada whorehouse insist on the ladies douching with bleach beforehand.

[David Floyd]

It's been proven both in the west and abroad that it's incapable of reducing STD transmission.

You're disingenuously avoiding the question, as usual, Ben. If condoms were used 100% of the time, of course they would reduce STDs, as you've basically already admitted when you said that having sex with a condom is safer than having sex without a condom. If the reason isn't less STDs, then how is it safer? The reason STD transmission hasn't gone down, is because people, for whatever reason, don't use condoms. You, and your church, oppose telling the truth about condoms - not the history of condoms, but the truth about what actual condom use would do.

The reason being, as I've said before, is that people take more risks. All things being equal a condom will protect you better then not wearing one, but if you increase the risk, then it negates whatever protection a condom will provide. Sleep with enough partners, and your risk will actually exceed someone who sleeps without a condom, provided they limit their partners.

Really? What's the limit? Additionally, and I've made this point before, I'll take 10 women, use a condom every time. You take 1 woman and don't use a condom. Is 10-1 a good ratio, or would you prefer hire? Anyway, we'll repeat this scenario until one of us gets an STD.

Now you're the one throwing out unquantifiable numbers and ratios, Ben. The reality is, it only takes ONE TIME sleeping with someone who has an STD, and getting the STD without using a condom. While the possibility still exists WITH a condom, the likelihood of transmission is vastly lower.

Let's put it another way. Ask your doctor. If your doctor is a practicing Catholic, then understand that his opinion is likely skewed, and go ask a doctor without a dog in the fight. If your doctor agree that 100% condom use would reduce STD transmission, then STFU. If he says otherwise, please post his name so that I can look into his credibility (ie, his religious beliefs).

And my point is that the two are not like each other at all. The roads can be used by everyone. Are you saying that everyone has a ride where you have been?

The two are alike in the sense that they both involve risk. Why can't you simply see the very simple point I'm making, and move on?

500 thousand people have died from AIDS in the USA, since 1981. This means that around 20 thousand every year will die. I'm going to assume that you only have sex with women, which reduces your chances of contracting HIV considerably, to about 23 percent or so.

Source that for me, please, as it is very obvious that 23% of the US population does NOT have HIV.

On the other hand, if 20,000 per year die in the US from HIV, and that number remains constant, let's assume that I have sex for 40 years. 20,000 X 40 = 800,000. Assuming the US population stays constant at 300 million for those 40 years, then 800,000/300,000,000 = ~0.27%. Of course, assuming in the next 40 years the US population is up to 350,000,000, that reduces the risk even further. Of course, we're only talking about DYING from AIDs - AIDs is becoming a less deadly disease (I still don't want it, of course), so I'll readily accept that the percentage of contracting it but not dying had a few tenths of a point into the above figure. In fact, let's just say that the final number is .5% over 40 years of contracting AIDs. Is that number alright with you?

The rest of your point talking about risk potential is irrelevant, because if those numbers had any resemblance to fact, a lot more than 20,000 people per year would die from HIV, now wouldn't they? And as Imran rightly points out, you aren't even taking the possibility of protection and mutual testing prior to sex into consideration. Also, let's take race into account. A much higher percentage of black women have HIV/AIDs than white women, so if I limit myself to sleeping with white women only, wouldn't that decrease my chance of getting AIDs? Yes, of course it would, and since I don't find black women attractive (for the most part, and have never slept with one), that lowers my risk factor even further.

The point is, Ben, a statistician you are not, so don't try to pull bull**** stats out of your ass, especially when you don't take anything else into account. You're just trying to do your usual smoke 'n mirrors hand-wavium strategy to distract people from the real point, which is that you don't think condoms are effective at reducing STD transmission. Most of the rest of us disagree with you, including doctors.

[Ecofarm]

"Kill self = save Earth" is stupid. It is possible to have a negative footprint, or an influence that reduces many footprints.


Anyway, I'm pro-life (my only social authoritarian stance) because I am ecocentric. I also ascribe largely to deep ecology (minus the sexist and supernatural stuff).

[BlackCat]

Well, my computer's calculator is giving me .9^10 as about .38, which sounds a little high but I'm not going to bother with doing it by hand.

Don't bother. No matter if you have 1, 10, 100, 1000 or more, the chance is still 0.1. It's a toss the coin case - previous results doesn't affect next try because they are unrelated.

The fun thing is that BK lies seriously since he in other threads has claimed that he knows about such

Edit: Well, if you really have 1000 sexual encounters, the chance is probly higher than 0.1, but that's because you are more active.

[Elok]

...no, if you have sex ten times, your aggregate chance of condom failure in one or more of the ten is found by taking the success rate to the tenth power. The chance of failure in any one session, of course, remains .1, but your overall chance of ten intact condoms is .9^10. Whatever the hell that is, because now that I think about it .38 sounds way too high.

Anyway, you're talking about the odds of any individual coin toss, whereas for the purposes of this discussion (and what BK was talking about) it's the aggregate chance of multiple "tosses" that matters. And in this case it's a ten-sided coin with one side tails.

Of course, if you want the actual chance of catching an STD it's prolly a lot more complicated, something like condom failure rate times percentage of the population sans STDs times rate of transmission...maybe some addition and division in there too somehow, I don't know. Been too long since I took statistics.

Anyway, as in all discussions here, the important point is that BK was wrong. He said "do the math," implying that one-in-ten failure rate times ten equals zero chance, when in fact the rate of success will approach, but NEVER reach, zero.

[BlackCat]

Well, my stats courses are some 25 years back, so they are pretty rusty

Though, I'll still say that the security of one condom isn't in any way affected by the succes/failure of previous. Same goes with the girls. The only rason that I wrote the caveat was that there after all is a limited number of girls available at sample time - I might be wrong, but I think it may influence on the result.

BK has an exceptional way of proving himself wrong, so I really don't care much about that point - though, it gives a good laugh

[Cort Haus]

I've learned something from this thread.

Some people have too much time.

[DirtyMartini]

And are very bad at math.

[Ben Kenobi]

To make it a fair comparison, you'd have to drive without airbags, seatbelts, or turn signals - you know to account for "safe driving".

Oh bull****. I'm only comparing HIV transmission, not all the other nasties you can get along the way.

These are real fatality measures on both ends, so it is a valid comparison.

I suppose I can fiddle with the numbers, but then what's the point? The point is to avoid adding bull**** factors to manipulate the numbers, not introduce them.

Furthermore, you aren't accounting for if both partners get tested before sex.

Oh, so you are suggesting that Floyd tests everyone he sleeps with?

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, my computer's calculator is giving me .9^10 as about .38, which sounds a little high but I'm not going to bother with doing it by hand. So, assuming you screwed exclusively people with STDs, and they were so filthy that you were guaranteed to catch it sans condom (not actually true in the real world), you'd have a little less than forty percent chance of escaping it. That's why most people who screw their way through the bargain bin at a Nevada whorehouse insist on the ladies douching with bleach beforehand.

And that's exactly right. Yes, I left it the way that I did so that the lazy trolls could accuse me of not doing the math correctly.