Several egalitarian philosophers make very strong claims about the value of equality. Some are more convincing than others, but they’re all interesting reading. I can recommend a few articles if you like! “Radical egalitarianism,” however, is mostly discussed on third-rate conservative blogs and seems to be shorthand for whatever left-wing policies the article writer most disagrees with.

I like the way you think. 😉 Recs:

Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice
– There are probably briefer and clearer summaries of Rawls elsewhere, but getting a handle on his main arguments is helpful since most recent egalitarian thinkers refer to him in one way or another.

Anderson, E. S. (1999), “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics, 109 (2), pp. 287-337.
– This is a lucid and convincing defense of democratic egalitarianism, and Anderson’s takedown of brute-luck egalitarians is g l o r i o u s.

Phillips, A. (2004), Defending Equality of Outcome. Journal of Political Philosophy, 12: 1–19.
– Read this for the next time someone tries to draw a distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

Scanlon, T. M., “When Does Equality Matter?” (available on NYU’s website, not sure if a link will look like spam)
– This talks about different reasons why we might value promoting equality (and not just, say, fighting poverty) as a political goal.

In general, it’s way more politically palatable to say “opportunities should be equal” than to say “outcomes should be equal.” But in that article, Anne Phillips makes an interesting argument: when considering groups of people in the aggregate (she uses men and women as examples), unequal outcomes between groups suggest that their opportunities are unequal. For example (off the top of my head), if a large majority of software engineers are men, then either men are naturally better than women at software engineering, or there are barriers, in practice, to women succeeding in this field. And if you actually look at the process of becoming a software engineer, there are a lot of reasons that it might be harder for women than men, even if their abilities are the same, so positing some additional inherent difference in ability doesn’t really make sense.

So, if someone believes that equality of opportunity is important (as many people of various political stripes do), the best way to assess whether opportunities are equal for different groups of people is, in fact, to look at the outcomes these groups achieve.

The point isn’t that outcomes should be equal across all people. The point is that if opportunities are equal, then outcomes will be roughly the same when comparing one group to another. For example, if men and women in a society have the same opportunities regardless of gender, then the average income of men will be the same as that of women. But individual men and individual women might have very different incomes depending on their choices and abilities.

Just to be totally clear, and then I’m off to bed: I was way oversimplifying the “average income” thing. What you’d really do is randomly sample each population and then test the difference between genders for statistical significance, controlling for other attributes such as age, race, and parental income. Unless there is an underlying difference, based on gender, between men and women in their ability to be economically successful, then you would not expect to find a statistically significant difference between the groups (controlling for all those other things).

Adding to what Sarah said,
It’s possible to strive for equality of outcome in other ways besides forcing it.
As an example, I want for all people in the world to be in good health. But I don’t want this to be achieved by hurting those in good health, just so everyone will be equal. That would be a horrific mass harm of those people’s human rights, and it would also be completely ridiculous – achieving technical ‘equality’ between all people, but not actually making things better.
Instead, we strive for all people to have good health, which means focusing our efforts on the people who don’t have that chance – put simply, improving health care in places where it’s of lower quality, and making all necessary health care available to all.
So. Striving for equality of outcome through equality of oppurtunity (in some ways, I’m not talking about a long term plan of making everyone identical…).

“You’re using the words, but either don’t understand them, or are deliberately ignoring the meaning used by those who advocate them.”

Or maybe you don’t understand the words, since you clearly didn’t read anything I wrote, including the examples.

“Equality of Opportunity: hand your job application forms in at the top of the stairs. Equality of Outcome: and the wheelchair lift is over on the right.”

What you wrote doesn’t make sense, because what you described as equality of outcome is actually equality of opportunity. Equality of OUTCOME is that, in the end, everyone gets the same equal result. Equality of OPPORTUNITY is everyone gets the same chance to TRY for a successful result.

“Equality of Opportunity is the simplistic assertion that everyone gets the same chance. ”

If it was truly simplistic, you’d have understood what it means.

“Equality of Outcome is about taking that assertion and using it as the mandate to remove the unacknowledged structural disadvantages faced by certain minority groups, such as stairs.”

No, equality of outcome means a guarantee that everyone will succeed after they’ve been given an equal opportunity. There are no guarantees in life. And if you think the world owes you a successful result, then you’ve never had to work for anything in your life, and any successes you do get are meaningless because they’ve been handed to you.

“It’s about making Equality of Opportunity mean what it says, not about removing personal merit.”

How can you make an argument when my post was ‘is this equality of opportunity or equality of outcome?’ Then arguing they’re the same thing, as if you didnt read my explanation at all. Go back and read, then respond.

Guaranteeing an equal outcome DOES remove personal merit, because there is no point in trying hard if you’re guaranteed the same result.

Everything you wrote in your post is you not understanding what equality of outcome means, and claiming it’s all meaning equality of opportunity. Including your last paragraph.

“The organisation has a reputation for pursuing Equality of Opportunity, but that wasn’t enough, X was still being excluded.”

Then they did not have equality of opportunity in hte first place if someone was being excluded for reasons other than that they simply were bad at their work.

“Equality of Outcome was someone with the push to make it stick”
I have no idea what that means, but it still looks like you’re describing equality of opportunity and don’t realize it.

“pointing out that disabled people were being excluded for not having done something they physically couldn’t do at a junior level, which was _irrelevant_ to the senior level job at hand.”

Seriously, this sentence makes no sense at all. If someone literally can’t do the work, you don’t guarantee them the outcome. If you’re a parapalegic, you’re not going to be a fireman. They can let you try out but all the equality of opportunity in the world isn’t going to mean they should give you the same income as the guy who can do the obstacle course in under a minute.

For that matter, a person with an IQ of 85 and a guy with an IQ of 185 might both want to be a doctor. They might both have the same opportunity to go to school. But one of them is going to be successful. The other will not be. But hey…. want equality of outcome? You let the doctor with an IQ of 85 operate on you. I’ll stick to the smart person who was able to pass his or her classes without being given the answers.

“Sigh, or maybe I just didn’t consider your examples to have any validity because they don’t addess the reality of ‘equality of outcome’ used by those campaigning for it.”

Do you realize the circular nature of what you just said?

You don’t consider my examples of equality of opportunity being different than equality of outcome because my examples don’t address the equality of outcome with the equality of opportunity?

Seriously, READ what I wrote about why they are totally different things, and why one is a good thing (equality of opportunity) while the other is not only bad it makes equality of opportunity meaningless. You don’t even bother to address THAT. You just mix the two up and start defining equality of outcome with examples of ensuring equality of opportunity instead.

Which means you’ve missed the entire point of every portion of my rather long and detailed posts.

“Remember before denying this is correct that ‘those campaigning for it’ describes both me and most of my disabled friends and has done for most of the last decade (Tory governments have that effect on minority groups they decide to demonise).”

Oh for crying out loud, AGAIN, you’re describing EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY. Not EQUALITY OF OUTCOME. You have no right to equality of outcome, because if that was guaranteed, what’s the point of even HAVING equality of opportunity in the first place. You’d be guaranteed the same result even if you didn’t put any work into it anyway, and regardless of your ability to do any tasks.

“Society talks about equality of opportunity, but is poor at understanding that saying ‘we won’t discriminate’ doesn’t actually guarantee that no discrimination will occur, because society is simultaneously poor at recognising the existence of structural/institutional discrimination.”

You’re still talking about equality of opportunity. If someone says ‘we will not discriminate’ and discrimination still occurs, it means equality of opportunity has not been achieved. What it does NOT mean is that we should guarantee that everyone, regardless of how much work they do or the quality of their work or their abilities in regard to their work should achieve the same success.

I’m going to try again to give you an example. I’m going to make the example exceedingly simple, and I’m going to hope you will actually read and try to gather what I’m saying in this example. I doubt you will because so far you haven’t with any of my other examples.

Okay. Here’s the example.

Billy and Becky are two kids who have jobs shoveling snow – they each charge $10 per house they shovel snow for. Billy is allowed to shovel snow for all the houses on the left side of the street, since all the house want the snow cleared and are willing to pay. Becky can shovel snow for all the houses on the right side of the street, since all the house want the snow cleared and are willing to pay. This is the equality of opportunity.

After 6 hours, Billy has shoveled snow for 7 houses. Becky has shoveled snow for 3 houses. Billy makes $70 (6 houses at $10 each). Becky makes $30 (3 houses at $10 each). Well…. this is NOT equality of outcome. If you want equality of outcome, you would be forced to take $20 away from Billy and give it to Becky, so both have $50 each. THAT is equality of outcome. Aside from this being unfair to Billy, who shoveled snow for more than double the amount of houses, what is Billy’s incentive to do this again. He might as well just see how many houses Becky is shoveling snow for, and keep the same exact pace, because otherwise he’s doing more work for no reason. Equality of outcome encourages less work to be done as a result. Now, instead of 10 houses being cleared of snow next time, only 6 will be.

Please tell me you see what I’m saying. Because if you disagree with this extremely simple concept, I don’t know what else to say.

Now lets see your example, so I can actively refute what you’ve written. See… i’m actually going to look at it, and explain why you are wrong, pointing out where you’re wrong. I’m not going to just say ‘your examples have no validity’ and just repeat the same thing over and over again.

“eg: “Now of course we would never discriminate over your being a woman, but this two year gap in your career makes you less attractive as a candidate.”
“Yes, I had a baby”
“Nevertheless, a two year career gap is not something I can ignore.”
The candidate’s competence hasn’t changed, but the recruiters institutional prejudices work against them even if they obstensibly believe in equality of opportunity.”

Actually, the candidate’s competency DID change. She has two years less experience than another person who did not have a two year gap in his OR her work history. Notice how I’ve said his or her. Because you not only ignore that there is such a thing as stay-at-home dads, you also ignore that a woman who does NOT have a baby is not going to have that work gap and and will have the same amount of experience as a man who worked the same amount of time. Both had equality of opportunity. One person decided to have a baby, AND to take off 2 years of work to be with the child during the baby’s formative years. It’s justifiable for the woman to want to, but that’s her choice. There’s no discrimination there at all, actually.

What would you have the employer do – hire the person with LESS experience, rather than the person with more experience? In what world does that make even the slightest bit of sense? And in what way is that fair to either another woman who has NOT had a baby, and instead was working those two years, OR a man who has not taken off from work in order to be a stay-at-home dad for those two years?

What exactly happens if they can only hire ONE of those candidates? How do you guarantee equality of outcome there? You already ARE guaranteeing equality of opportunity – there was no one saying that the woman had to have a baby. And the woman also did not have to take off two years. She did so because she wanted to be a good mother to the child and take care of the child personally, instead of, say, hiring an opere or nanny, or having her husband stay at home to take care of the baby while she works. No one prevented her from doing that.

However, the only way I see to guarantee equality of outcome is to hire BOTH of them. But what if the employer can’t afford to hire both of them? Does the employer hire both of them at half salary? What if there is not enough work to make hiring both of them even remotely efficient? Or are you saying that the employer MUST hire the woman? How’s that equality of outcome for the person who did NOT have a two year gap from raising a baby?

“Stop writing essays that try to force my points, written from the perspective of someone actually doing the damn stuff, into your political perspective that we’re all clueless idiots who want to remove competence from the equation. We don’t, and we aren’t.”

How about start actually reading my points and responding to them, instead of engaging in ad hominem attacks? I had posted explanations that were a lot shorter at first, but you keep repeating the same ignorant statements, ignoring EVERY point and description I write, then require me to refute everything you keep saying and repeating. So how about use logic and respond to my words, not make up stuff? That would be nice. You still haven’t even TRIED to refute my points – because you can’t. Plus you don’t understand the difference between opportunity and outcome.

“The language used is less than ideal, but that is because the better term has been preempted by those with the flawed understanding.”

Just because you can’t refute what I said does not mean it’s flawed. It means you don’t have an answer. Either you’re incapable of making an argument, or an argument does not exist that refutes what I said.

(seconded. If I ever find the brain I want to read these too, thank you.)

ok but if you do find the brain could i borrow it for a lil while pls

Oh gods, seriously fuck that panel for all eternity. Wonder Woman is not some bloodthirsty murderer, she will kill if she feels she must but she will always struggle to reach another option.
That isn’t Wonder Woman; this is Wonder Woman.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f44060bb4881a216c486806fa675acd769c716c1080af345b104f81558b17e4a.jpg

Fair enough. I meant more – what she is spiritually/symbolically, what she represents, even if she’s not always written that way.

Yeah, she fluctuates an awful lot.

Well, in fact I took a long hot bath, decided I was too tired even for late night sword practice and will soon be going to bed. I mean, at most, it’s just me stomping around and being grumpy. To me the issue isn’t so much whether or not it’s Max that it’s happening to – it pretty much pisses me off when people get into this kind of speculation about any characters.*

If Max’s mom can provide security for him that will keep him safe from higher powered capes, it’s… probably getting into conspiracy subplots. Or it’s going to mess with Max’s life. I mean, at the beginning of this, he felt free and comfortable enough to flirt with Alison and make jokes about her touching his butt. Which I still think was below the belt, as it were, but… I just don’t see Max having that kind of lifestyle again.

* Especially involved what I see as somewhat but not particularly overwhelming trauma, which tends to hit my fetishizing trauma buttons. As I said, personal issues. I has them, I mostly try to keep them mostly bound up in volumes and filed on shelves, and bring them out in a more or less civilized manner. Which, ahem, should be totally apparent from my writing here… (I do work at it, but I am not always a nice person. Well. Hm. Okay, nice might not be what I work at.)

Oh, make no mistake, this is all about personal issues on my part, this is not about me making reasoned choices and being a nice person. Which I probably would have rambled about less had I not been quite so tired yesterday. (Stupid cold. Stupid cold which I really can’t afford before going to a conference with 30,000 people and then my first – if very short – vacation in almost a year… I am taking naps and hot baths and am so glad I’m ahead of schedule on everything.)

When dealing with actual people, I really do deal with the experiences they have actually had, and they ways these have affected them. Which are varied. And what is, like, last Tuesday for one person can be pretty traumatizing for another.

In fiction… there are a lot of cultural narratives around trauma that seriously rub me the wrong way, and because of my own experiences they do not tend to ring true. And they promote tropes I find annoying sliding over to offensive. Since we are dealing with fiction, and in this case the potential trauma that commenters are attaching to characters in a web comic… It is a little hard to not get super irritable and grouchy and make all kinds of disgusted noises about how this is a single incident that isn’t necessarily as traumatic as all that (…and I’ve talked way too much about life history stuff here already.)

It’s not like I’m not perfectly aware that it’s not really a valid comparison. I mean, Max, besides being fictional, is likely is a sheltered little hothouse flower who never has know the harsher side of life. (And some darker side of my brain at this point is saying “Good! Teach the twit about how the other half lives.”* But it’s not really even aimed at Max the character, as much as the assumptions of people who apparently haven’t had even this much trauma in their lives.**) If it’s traumatic to him, then it is. If I were dealing with a real world Max… well, if I didn’t end up pushing him off a bridge (and I’ve never pushed anyone off a bridge yet – at least, I’m pretty sure, and if I did, it was one of my martial brothers in a sparring situation – Chasmek, do you remember me pushing anyone off a bridge? Anyhow, not seriously…) it would be a different issue. He might be an entertaining martial arts student.

I guess I just find the tendency to dig for trauma to be distasteful. It comes across as trauma porn. This was a single incident. It was awful, but no one knows how awful except for Max (well, and Alison, but in a different sort of way.) For almost any incident of given awfulness – and let me repeat, while scary and awful, the way not nearly as bad as many – for any given population, you’ll see an awful lot of people who don’t get PTSD or suffer other obvious ill effects (and we’re talking long term, here.) Look at studies of soldiers, or children who have suffered long term abuse. I hate hearing all the “Oh, now he’s going to be scarred and wounded and broken forever!” because those tropes suck.

…and yeah, you are correct that the privilege angle also sucks. (My personal feelings there get very tangled. Sometimes, being expected to be strong can be a hell of a blessing. But really, any time people see their expectations and not people, it’s bad.)

* Which is really an odd statement. I mean, someday I am going to write a long form piece about the class implications of trauma and abuse, because there is something in there, but hell. I’m a professor’s daughter. That I’ve been poor was because I fled that household when I was fifteen – and did pretty well, but, still, it took some doing.
** Again, it’s the assumptions, not the people.

Not just Feral, either. I mean, there’s Feral’s recent ordeal, which at least she chose, for all it’s complexities and ambiguities – but compare Max’s life, generally, to that of pretty much any other biodynamic we’ve met, certainly those who played superhero roles in their teens. Any of the Guardians? Any of Patrick’s gang (because hello, when you’re talking about folks in their mid teens, the hero / villain divide is pretty artificial.) Any of Brad’s ADA friends?

…and it’s Max’s trauma we’re worrying about? Really? That is part of what’s frustrating me, at a meta-level. I mean, maybe Max is more… relatable for some folks?

Eesh. I mean, Moonshadow, let’s say, it super off the rails. But she’s super off the rails at least to some extent because she was fighting the good fight first (and not getting appropriate support) while Max was hiding away. Furnace too, probably. This comic world, it is not a nice place. People are not getting the care they need. Max is more of a sheltered little snowflake than anyone we’ve previously met. (Which doesn’t make the bottom page of this bit any less horribly beautiful. http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-6/page-87-2/ )

(I guess also can simultaneously think that Violet might have been technically sort of correct when she was going on about Alison having been a child soldier and maybe having PTSD and at the same time think she should STFU because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I mean, that kind of arm-chair diagnosis shouldn’t be casually thrown around, especially by clueless twits, and most especially to people’s faces – that’s just foul and uncalled for. And Violet was using that to divert attention from the inappropriate shenanigans of her Chill Friend. So Fuck Violet. But… it was a great way to get people thinking about hey, we have a whole genre built on super powered child soldiered and what does that really do to people?)

I think “good” is a pretty flexible sort of concept. Furnace clearly had a legitimately shitty upbringing, even if he was one obnoxious git. I’m not sure that the governmental response wasn’t “Okay, this is your particular bias, how can we best use you?” I’ve known guys that presented a bit like him. Some of them got a lot better. I don’t think his environment was doing him any favors.

I was being pretty sarcastic on the relatable, so we are entirely in sync there – I mean, I think people probably are finding him relatable, but argh, have y’all thought this through? I really do not know. I mean, a lot of people I actually know in real life who to some degree like and admire me to not find me that relatable, even before they know about the scary trauma part of my history. (Which I’m pretty open about, because it’s so not my job to protect everyone’s delicate sensibilities. But it’s not like it always comes up.) And I think Max has been an ass, so there is part of me that kind of despairs of him being the touchstone character.

Feral… Mm. Actually, I’d like to hear more of your thoughts there. I haven’t been reading these last few discussions as carefully as some. I know I tend to see her through a fairly specific lens, which is probably not the most helpful one in this circumstance.

I *am* inclined to be a pretty strong Gurwara fan. But then hell, smart, can confuse the heck out of his students, not half my age, and clearly been through enough shit that we could probably relate – of course I am. (So much better than the cognitive dissonance of thinking “Lisa is awesome! – oh, and the age of some of my research students!”)

This actually puts me in mind of a lot of criticism vampire diaries fans have about the treatment of Bonnie Bennett – the only woman of color on the show, the only peson of color period I think, and her entire existence on the show is basically to suffer, to help others, and to put herself through suffering to help others, and both the writers and most fans don’t see a problem with this. (I don’t actually watch the show, but I’ve read a lot of opinions about her character).
Anyway, yeah, people from marginalized groups, both in real life and in fiction are expected to carry the burden of however much pain and struggle, usually a lot, and carry it quietly, and aren’t given an inch of the sympathy or understanding their less marginalized counterparts are… I’ll admit I’m guilty of this myself, I haven’t for example considered how Tara’s decision was influenced by circumstances and maybe we shouldn’t have accepted it so easily.

No clue what you are up to, and these things aren’t without cost, but I am a major advocate of life allowing do-overs and reinvention. I went into research in my early thirties, post software, with a lot of reasons to think that going back into academia was a non-starter. (My undergrad work being in chinese, and some weirdness with the chinese department being part of that.)

I think as far as it goes Furnace shows all signs of being a pretty awful person.* And pretty much any situation in which people look at Furnace and Moonshadow and come out of it confident in their assessment that Moonshadow is The Bad Guy leaves me pretty horrified… but I guess I’m also pretty sickened by an overly comfortable reverse assessment. Furnace is easy to hate, but damn, I am in no way comfortable with his situation and I don’t think he was set up as a cardboard cut out villain.

There is meta-world question here – to what extent do other biodynamics, at least high powered biodynamics, have someone along the lines of Dr. Rosenblum assigned to them, and what role is this person playing. I mean, Dr. Rosenblum seems to be a sweetie – but then, Alison is likely to get handled with kid gloves. We don’t have enough data, but what we’ve seen so far supports a government policy of a) keeping biodynamic individuals from causing harm, by whatever means necessary and b) using them as an exploitable resource. Their welfare doesn’t really seem to have been a big part of things, though perhaps that will change now that biodynamic folks are starting to organize politically.

And Feral… yeah. I guess I found her situation pretty disturbing, and thought that with the authorial framing (Al being super fruck out about it) there wasn’t a lot of bias towards folks accepting Feral’s situation as okay. I agree, though, there wasn’t much exploration of context. Both in terms of Feral’s personal background (journey of self-discovery aside) and in terms of what the hell is going on the with medical ethics community.

It’s going to be interesting to see Al dealing with actual Feral, rather than her guilt and symbolic Feral.

(And then you have Max, who is a seething bundle of entitlement and resentment, while being protected from all of this by his mom. I suppose there’s a chance that this might accelerate his maturation process? But the reverse is probably more likely. I mean, Max is kind of the living embodiment of a dumpster fire, but Al actually lit the fire.

And Al, who already has diplomacy as a dump stat, and figures that showing up in the middle of the night to accost her sort of ex boyfriend she just got in a fight with and humiliated, to ask for a favor, a really important world changing favor, is a good plan.

And for that matter Patrick, who at best… thought that trying to get on Al’s good side was worth risking something this important. Though maybe this really was his first good shot at getting at Max?) Arrrggh.

…there is definitely a big part of me that wishes we could pick and choose which characters we were following.

* There’s a meta-conversation going on around the zendo (and elsewhere) about how to engage with, say, people in small towns with high unemployment, low education and… well, and strong tendency to be Trump supporters. The thesis question being: “these folks have legitimate problems, and yet on a personal level they drive us absolutely up a tree, WTF?” But, of course, the same problem in other guises shows up pretty frequently. The above casting, though, makes me think a lot of Furnace. Gods, though, I hope people will eventually learn to stop saying “crisis of masculinity” in my presence. Fuck That Noise. At least there’s a general agreement that you can’t make the same kind of earnest sad noises about a crisis of white supremacy in polite company.

I’ve been considering how different, if at all, the comments section would have been if Patrick had sat down with Max for an hour and Max still wound up doing the same thing. (Although Patrick wouldn’t, I just wonder if the outrage will still exist for mental coercion instead of physical.)

Yeah. The extent to which casual violence is accepted from male characters and not from female characters if notable.

No, I do not recall anyone being pushed off of any bridges. Though there may have been discussion of being pushed into the water as a result of sparring in/around your old houseboat…?

Even at that retreat up on Mt. Rainier? I am remembering something about recreating the Robin Hood and Little John fight.. (though I wasn’t one of the primaries, I was doing weight and balance work with a fierce woman you know well.)

I wasn’t aiming it at anyone in particular. A lot of people brought it up, and I didn’t really attach people to it. It’s not even an unreasonable concern… even if it annoys me for personal reasons.

…and I am tired, and I have been grading way too many exams, from Anatomy students who have more promising futures as fantasists than medical professionals.

Pretty much! Now imagine that degree of remodeling done to the heart!

I think that was one of the answers!

…at least if their answers are uniquely wrong, you know they’re not cheating?

No, we’re good. I probably shouldn’t have gotten back online after the bath last night – I was of quickly dissolving coherence. (And maybe catching a cold, which I really, really can’t afford right now. Okay, I know immune suppression is often correlated with burn out but… please, body, just a few more months…!)

I’m working pretty hard on work life balance (I mean, hey, I live in a zendo!) but the next bit is going to be a bit of an unavoidable slog. Also, my immune system has been in a bit of a tizzy ever since I had spine surgery a few years back – not that I know for certain that was the trigger – and while mostly its expressed this by some absurd new and severe food allergies, I’m not sure the frequent viruses this fall isn’t part of things.

…or maybe skipping my summer vacation was a poor call. *shrug* I’m mostly annoyed now not because the cold itself is that terrible or ill-timed – I’m really in good shape for the conference already, and have time to rest up – but because I got sick a couple of time earlier I still haven’t gotten my flu shot.

And after the conference I’m going up to Tuscon to see my favorite Aunt, and catch up with a former girlfriend, and I really don’t want to get sick. (Also, I was going to try to take in some family history stuff while in San Diego. And if we can manage it, a few labmates and I might skive off and go tidepooling. Who can stay at a conference for a week?)

You two stop THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE ANTITHESIS OF GAYNESS APPRECIATION DAY

Thank you. Between Clemens, we ought to stand for each other.

So much gayer.

Closest thing I could find to Gayness Appreciation Day on short notice…
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51OmC41VLsL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg