What question would you "retire" from AskReddit?

Yes thank you! And the thing is I don't see a bunch of construction workers being rude and just asking me to Google how to get that wall down...

Obviously you're not all bad. I'm a pretty open minded person and I understand how to let things that I know a ton about go. I literally had some stranger try to tell me that the AK was made my Germans. There is a chance that there might be one particular model of AK that was manufactured by Germans, but I'm nearly 100% sure that all AK's are at the very least designed by Russians. This is a big deal for me because I have this compulsive need to be right.

The point is, I'd that I am not like the rest of these literal idiots on reddit. I actually understand that just because one person in a group of people is a dice, that it doesn't mean that all of the people in that group are dicks. I understand that your reply was necessary for the discussion. I guess I just wanted you to know that I understand that every group of people has a vocal minority.

Can you hit a fast ball?

I have literally heard of one unicorn in the wild. I seriously doubt that this unicorn understand group theory or that it can undertake a complicated engineering project.

HE IS THE MESSIAH

The point of my post is that I get irritated at IT people that scorn others online for not having skills that they are paid to hone and research every day. It was assumed in my examples that I was talking about how car Mechanics and air conditioner techs.

That was the point of my post.

mostly geeky friends like me

So cringe worthy.

I disagree. Those who don't know how to Google are generally either enabled by those that do or have so little free time that they must either leverage their free time to figure it out by themselves or find someone who can solve their problem for them, with or without Google.

The issue is, there's a definite sense of superiority when people say stuff like that. A sort of "I'm smarter because I know this stuff."

The thing is, though, while it's been a struggle for my family to teach my mom how to use the computer and the internet (and teaching her how to use the shift key to send emails was part of this), she's also quite a fine nurse who just immediately understands how cocktails of medications are likely to react in people and all that jazz. People have the tendency of treating people who aren't all that good at using computers as dumb and part of the annoying part of the teaching process was having to tell you "you aren't dumb for not getting this, you can clearly look at your profession and how you excel in it to see that you are not dumb."

My mom was one of 'those' people you so demean. She didn't know the @ key, and had difficulty talking to IT because English wasn't her first language. It felt like, at times, IT people would sometimes just not take her seriously. Now, she uses a computer everyday and is an accountant. She knows how to use a computer better than I. So instead of being condescending, how about you try your best to help them.

Oh you're THAT GUY

yeah like if youre gonna wait in like for 10 min please use 1/4 of that time to at least decide what you want instead of squealing and giggling with your friends over stupid shit that wasnt funny then they approach the counter and need like 25 min to pick something jesus PICK A FUCKING PASTRY GODAMN THIS ISNT FUCKING NUCLEAR WAR NEGOTIATIONS YOULL LIKE MOST EVERYTHING HERE YOUR LIFE ISNT RUINED IF YOU PICK SOMETHING WRONG

godamn i need a cigarette

Yeah I agree. I was just in China for a month and I'm amazed at how long other people's transactions take when you don't know the language. I speak no mandarin, so before getting to any counter I would decide exactly what I needed to say, and translate it into mandarin phrased a few different ways (in case one of the translations didn't make sense) and give my phone to the guy at the counter. Never took me longer than 30 seconds at the very longest to finish my end of the transaction. Then all the other people are going up there, with the advantage of being able to speak, and still taking 90+ seconds. Just back and forth and back and forth with the guy. Hurry up!

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They're all true, it's just gotten to the point that I don't even open those threads anymore, because I don't need to read basically the same thread twice a week.

For the first time in the history of Reddit, someone has forgotten about OP's mom

Are we not talking bout Firefly any more?

I thought so too but not much has changed. Before the change people were still happy at being on the frontpage with a text post ("RIP inbox wow all those replies!") and now they get karma for it.

It'd be better to simply not display the total karma count at all, but if we're gonna go that way might as well be consistent.

Not really on other subs it will promote more text posts and discussion rather than low effort image macros

I don't see why. There were a few GREAT posts that were text posts. I think it's just the site just wanted to use karma to incentivize all kinds of posts and not just one kind. And that could be true whether you care about karma or not. I know for certain that a lot of people do.

Why is it stupid?

Why?

Since you haven't seen it anywhere, here's your karma. You can see it on anyone's user page.

Basically, it's a sum of the points on your posts and a sum of the points on your comments (excluding your own upvote). There is the exception that if someone votes on your post or comment 24 hours after it's posted, it won't affect your karma^{[citation needed]}.

It was a question of how things worked. I'm not a karma whore.

How else do you explain all the reposts, generic funny remarks, and most of imgur?

What if she sneezed?

☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

tips redhat

M'otherboard

Yeah, shame about the honking on a crack pipe though

So sayeth the 'Loaf.

I cooked my cookout on my grillfriend

It was a shitty comment because it wasn't funny, interesting or well written.

Also, what sarcasm?

I waited so long for that night, it was surreal. Come join us over at r/dishonored!

And we never heard of him again.

Dope ass-horns, fool.

mini-internal conflict here--not sure I want to upvote you past the 69 points you had.

[deleted]

Well duh. The actual discussion comes in when they explain why its fun.

College as a reflection of intelligence is.... Misguided. While I do agree there is value to it, I've met A LOT of really dumb graduates... At this point it's basically just High school v2, revenge of the wallet.

if you are really aggressive about it it does

Yeah I know, but it removes them from the gene pool.

no, but it's an awful crime against their autonomy.

You do realise that gataca was set in a dystopia, right?

That's a scary slippery slope right there. Once you can start nitpicking genes, what do you leave and what do you keep? Welcome to the world of Divergent.

Wouldn't be too hard for a small group of people to ensure that everyone is genetically programmed to be essentially a robot.

Embryo selection and gene therapy are very different, but they still have their problems. As far as eugenics goes, it would only make sense if we had to actively control the population. More people isn't really a problem normally because the dumbest people, the people that we would be removing from the gene pool/society are doing low paying jobs that nobody wants, and what money they do make they spend since they can't afford to save money. This is also the reason that immigration is generally a good thing even from a nationalist's perspective. (Not that immigrants are dumb, but they get the lowest paying jobs.) If there were overpopulation, then it would probably be more effective to find ways to provide for everyone than to resort to eugenics. Currently we can proficiently provide for everyone in America, and in developed nations, population tends to stagnate. I assume that developing nations will eventually find ways to give their citizens a better standard of living, but until then I could see how overpopulation might be a problem. Even if it became a problem though, eugenics would cause a lot of unrest among the people we'd consider sterilizing. I forget who, but when eugenics first started being considered in Germany, a philosopher said that although sterilization might not seem bad for wealthy people, (because we can go to the theater, spend money, and do things that make our lives more interesting,) it would be terrible for poor people because they don't have time for things like that. They have to work a lot more, and for a lot of them, the only things they really enjoy in life are their wives and children, and eugenics takes a part of that away from them. Gene therapy could be put to good use, but I do think that there should be limits to what can be done. If gene therapy could be used to make people far smarter and fit than the average person, then the people who can't afford it would be putting their kids, who are already disadvantaged by being poor, at an even larger disadvantage. Embryo selection is kind of neutral in my opinion. Since they would just be normal embryos, they wouldn't be as problematic as gene therapy, but if one child is born, then another child would have to not be born. If I was born with some deformity, I wouldn't blame my parents for not using embryo selection since the embryo they'd select would be a different child entirely.

The US (especially California) were a big proponent of Eugenics back in the day (when it was considered the future by some people), I'm pretty sure it didn't make California a better place.

Also one could argue that if you start with Eugenics, you might not stop there. 1930s Germany sure didn't.

I can still recognize that it would make the world a better place.

That's a bold statement. It would make the world an arguably healthier place, assuming we didn't screw up. It would, however, eliminate the future contributions of a lot of people who would have otherwise existed.

You mean Gattica, right? They weren't so obvious with the title.

human rice

shudder

puts on tinfoil hat

Ahh yes, advance rice will definitely take over the world through its advancements. Damn GMOs are out to get us.

Rumor has it that Jesus let himself be killed just to avoid the "what is truth" bullshit with Pilate.

Still, we all think you're stupid. edit: If you call a guy stupid your punctuation must be on point.

Didn't you just comment this exact thing like... Yesterday?

See, shit like this is exactly what he's talking about.

I'm not saying I don't give legitimate debates and arguements attention, I really do, but I can honestly do without screaming my head off at someone on the Internet and offending tons of others in the process.

I've had quite a few very interesting debates with some very awesome atheists that have enlightened me quite a bit and changed my opinion on quite a few issues, among these: evolution, global warming, gay rights, transgenderism, and a few others.

when it comes to god, we can't prove or disprove that he exists. Whether you choose to believe he's real or not is less a matter of facts and more a combination of personality, circumstances, and upbringing.

Walking away from an argument he would have to engage with every single time he goes on Reddit is immature? Pretty sure spending all his time arguing about religion on Reddit would qualify as immature. Or being a fucking tool trying to jump on someone who mentions their religion in a passing joke, that's both immature and how to have no friends.

If it makes you feel any better, the people who advocate for eugenics are also on that list.

It make me more pissed off that some piece of shit thinks they can control my human right to reproduce or even exist because they think that it will keep a "pure" gene pool.

I've had people on here (not this subreddit) tell me that I should die for being disable when this topic has come up before. How pro old came thing that way is mind boggling and really fucking disturbing. Personally, I decided not to have kids because I have too much trauma from my childhood but if you can provide a loving home and fulfill their needs, that's all that matters.

I gotchu fam, I care about you <3

I worry about a world where people think that all suffering is always bad. When people talk about eugenics (including in the white-washed way we do all the time when people get a down syndrome or other diagnosis early in pregnancy) they seem to ignore the fact that living with and caring for disabled/ill people can make you a better person. Living with illness or disabilities yourself can make you a better person. Learning to empathize and to overcome adversity builds character.

I'm not advocating for trying to make people suffer more to build character, but I don't think we should be as scared of suffering as we seem to be.

The thing is, there's every chance that if you have some disability, you could breed with someone with enough genetic diversity from you that your lame traits would die off, but their healthy ones would all land on the kid. That's the big point that eugenics is always missing, is that breeding from very different parents makes MUCH more viable offspring. If you're a messed up white dude, you could have babies with a kind of messed up black lady and your kids could easily be just great. Have you ever noticed how mixed race people are goddamn beautiful? The thing about bad genes is that honestly, while you can keep breeding them in, you can also breed them right the hell out if you actually know wtf you're doing.

My point is, you should marry a woman from another continent

Serious question. What do you think about the possibility of selecting which of your sperm fertilized an egg? If we could take your sperm and select the "best" one, which ideally would not pass any hereditary diseases you may have into the next generation.

without consideration of my feelings

Do you consider the feelings of your potential children who might have to live with a severe genetic defect, or do you just like the idea of having babies?

It would really depend how extreme the parameters are. Is limiting childbirth to only the richest 10% a bad idea? Yes definitely.

Is limiting childbirth from people with mental retardation a bad idea? Well that one is up for debate.

I still care about you as an individual, I just care about improving the health and intelligence of the average individual more than your right to reproduce.

Man, I always considered myself an eugenicists, but never in such a bad way!

Deprive people of reproducing? Deprive people of their rights? Fuck no!

Eugenics should be about bettering human kind, not making people afraid of being deprived of their rights!

I believe it should be used to cure illness in fetuses via genetic manipulation, maybe also altering some personalisable characteristics (less sure about that one) and generally making sure the newborn is as healthy as possible.

The tools are genetic engineering on fetuses, selection of sperms and ovaries and things like that.

Killing, sterilize or retiring rights to anybody is monstrous and as an eugenist I would fight against that for sure!

[deleted]

If it makes you feel better I'm a believer in the underlying concept (Bettering the human race via selective breeding)

And basically the only thing I have going for me a high IQ. Hell I'm currently sitting in hospital because genetics fucked me over.

But really that's the point, it's to remove those straight up problems like type 1 diabetes from the gene pool so that future generations don't have to deal with it. Mind you if you go the genetic modification way this also means that people like you and me get to breed and the next generations get a better world and better bodies (As in not trying to kill themselves from the inside)

I'm in your camp. I support the theory, but do not trust humans to carry it out in a fair, humane manner.

It's substantially less horrifying if it's a choice people are making on their own, vs being forced into it. Even if the word "eugenics" can technically be applied to the situation you described, I think it's understood that we are all talking about the forced variety.

In it's actual implementation in the states, it was mostly just forced sterilization of people with autism or other mental issues, felons, etc. Obviously you have more extreme eugenics, but if it were to be implemented (again) I'm sure it would be the first kind, not the "kill all the retards, kill all the blacks, the jews, sterilize the fat families, the people with family history of disease, people who commit crimes" etc etc.

Either way, yeah, eugenics is pretty bad, but in practice it doesn't normally come out as full on genocide like people say.

My state had a eugenics board up until 1977, and as far as I know, all they did were sterilizations. Which, while not okay at all, is far from genocide.

"Positive" and "negative" eugenics are terms, not value judgments. Positive eugenics is encouraging those with good traits to have children. Negative eugenics is preventing those with bad traits from having children. This is a similar distinction between positive rights and negative rights.

The bad things people associate with eugenics, such as forced sterilization or parenting licenses, are methods of negative eugenics.

There was a thread a couple weeks ago, asking black people what they thought about BLM. Ones against it were upvoted and gilded. Ones for it, received a few upvotes at best or were downvoted. There was another thread asking Africans what they thought about black Americans. Most of the answers were either "idk and idc" or "this is clearly a ruse to get Africans to say they don't like black Americans so that racists can use it as justification."

"TIL Morgan Freeman opposes black history month"

Go for it. I'm not actually black, but don't let that stop you.

God, a bit off topic, but your comment just reminds me of whenever someone starts a racist rant against Chinese people, it's always followed up with a "but don't worry, I'm not racist, I have a Chinese friend who will totally verify all of my claims that the Chinese are a despicable group of people lacking morals." Typically, said Chinese friend is either born outside of China, or is one of those self loathing Chinese people who think bashing their own people will get them brownie points with their audience.

I don't know who is more annoying, the racist using the "reference" to justify their "brutally honest" opinion, or the person they're quoting who hates their own race.

if you can't find them without sorting by controversial you can't really say that they are "upvoted on reddit" even if they end up barely in the positive

I made one based on my experiences and got shot down.

Lol

You've got to read in between the lines. It isnt completely obvious shit like "kill all black people" but instead copypasta from stormfront, comparing BLM to the KKK(or even worse, a terrorist group) and shitposting about "black culture".

dead as in inactive community or dead as in news?

I went to voat a couple of days ago, yep it's a shitshow with crappy articles and comment sections.

I actually encourage people to go there to see what a crappy copy of Reddit looks like.

Right?? So many people get so edgy about "just stop eating" or "just exercise" and how easy it was for them to lose weight, but it's like they fail to realize that if it were actually that easy for everybody, nobody would be fat. It's hard; and you're not even allowed to acknowledge how hard it is or immediately everyone gets mad like "WELL IT'S WORTH IT SO KEEP DOING IT, HAMPLANET."

What's worse is when the people being that way have never actually been massively overweight. Their idea of "out of shape" would be at least 25% healthier than the super fat people they make fun of. They don't understand what it's like to be this fat and to not be able to just "go run a mile" or "just go to the gym."

Then there's that whole "food is fuel, feel guilty and obsessive about eating" attitude I keep seeing everywhere, and that really scares me. I had to stop reading The Oatmeal because he posted so much aggressive shit like that about running that it just made me uncomfortable. :( Idk what you'd call it, but it's just so normal in these communities that it genuinely scares me off the idea of getting in shape, lest I turn out like that.

I saw this before-after of a couple, and their before was a smiling, sweet looking couple (albeit fat,) and the after was a them, but greasy, half-naked, and tanned making "I'm better than you" faces in workout clothes. Like, yeah, they probably won't have congestive heart failure, but fuck, they look like they lost their personalities and were replaced with lunks. If that's the ideal transformation, what's the motivation to change?

There's just zero compassion for fat people. It seems like you have to literally not be yourself anymore to be even remotely redeemable in their eyes, and if you don't take on these unhealthy obsessive attitudes towards food and exercise, you're unhealthy and therefore a bad person.

Like I said above; I feel like the toxic attitudes of these kinds of people, and the scary mentality of the workout fanatics, actually "proves" the HAES people right, like in their minds it justifies their ideologies.

Edit: Sorry for the textwall. I think about this a lot.

My thoughts exactly. His supporters act like hes brave when hes just a bully. Im glad his Twitter got taken down. He was being an asshole

no, that's the absolute wrong attitude. Saying shit like that is what gives people like him the power to spread their attitude, because it lends them legitimacy. "Look", says Milo, "people really do think that white men are the devil. See how many death threats I get for just speaking my mind?". The best thing to do is just ignore it, because like he says he's a provocateur. If there's no one to provoke he's got nothing

yo chill i hate the guy but come on shoot him in the dick

I'm sure a lot of people would as well

I think that would be the choice most of us would make. PTSD and depression as well.

Except doesn't it not? IIRC a large percentage of post-ops still commit suicide

Well, that's one thing. But what else would you do to alleviate it? There's more than one way to skin a cat.

I think you actually can get surgery for this. The surgeon removes the amygdala (the fear center of the brain) but this kind of procedure is only for those who suffer from epilepsy.

I've had anxiety for 10 years and let me tell you, if that kind of surgery was available then I would get it in a heartbeat.

Get tits, no more anxiety.

Seems like a decent enough deal.

Citiation needed

The mind is responding in a healthy manner to incorrect stimuli, it's the body that is incorrect. Otherwise the same solutions for depression and anxiety and the like would work, though decades of research and work with patients has shown only physical and social transition is able to alleviate the stress and pain. For whatever reason, this is controversial.

The thing is, mental illnesses aren't just unusual, different, or 'weird' things going on in the brain. You could just as easily say that "if you honestly think the same sex is attractive then definitely something is wired differently in your brain". You'd probably be right, but different ≠ mental illness.

Just about every definition of mental illness stresses that they must cause suffering, or some degree of dysfunction in life. The mental illness that most transgender people have is called gender dysphoria, but transgenderism itself is no longer a mental illness.

Gender dysphoria is specifically the distress that comes from being trans, having a gender/sex mismatch. Some trans people actually have no dysphoria, and as such are not mentally ill. Many (most?) do, however, and as such need treatment (therapy, hormones, surgery).

Generally, therapy is the first line of treatment, and is effective sometimes.

But the discomfort and distress runs really, really deep in a lot of trans people, and no amount of therapy as we understand it now can really help them. I wouldn't say it's materialistic, but rather that this would probably be true of any society with gender roles or expectations.

As long as it doesn't affect you personally, why do you care?

...have you ever met a transgender individual, and had a conversation with them? Maybe asked about their hopes and dreams and their life history. You know, try to actually seek out the humanity in a person before judging them on how they live.

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Yeah, I'd say that's about right. I generally get a more positive response when someone thinks I'm gay than when they think I'm bi. I promise I'm not a slut...

This is what I was looking for. I don't understand the backlash whenever this topic comes up. I mean, yeah I get that it seems offensive to say they have a mental illness when transgenderism is now something so prevalent in our society, but that in itself is a pretty shitty thing. The stigma against mental illness is so horrible that being labeled as mentally ill has become a sort of slur.

Gender dysphoria meets all the prerequisites of a mental illness, and theres literally nothing wrong with that.

See i completely agree. But to believe this you need to understand that gender and sex are different. And some people refuse to believe that.

Transgender is about you feeling out of place in societies expectations of the sexes. That females should do this and males should do this. If you are a male and just wish to do female things, you are possibly transgender.

Gender Dysphoria is feeling that your personal body doesn't match the gender roles of society. This entails you actually being uncomfortable in the body you are in.

Transgender was removed, gender dysphoria was not.

If you are a transgender individual that experiences gender dysphoria you have a mental illness. Theres nothing wrong with that, most people at some point in their life experience a mental illness.

Most trans people experience gender dysphoria, hence why they are trans. If once a transgender individual gets HRT or therapy or surgery, whatever they need, and no longer experiences gender dysphoria, then they no longer have a mental illness.

Mental illness = a diagnosis, most often by a psychiatrist, of a behavioral or mental pattern that may cause suffering or a poor ability to function in life. 

So by definition, its based on society and what it believes. Because how one is able to "function in life" will continue to change. Its a stupid, bigoted definition and can encompass basically anything.

If we had a society where it wasnt the norm to comminicate with one another, social anxiety wouldnt be a mental illness. Can you see how its a bigoted definition to label anyone not "normal" as having a mental disorder?

[deleted]

Obviously I'm over simplifying, but you get my meaning.

You think it would be classified as one.

They're delusional. It's not mentally healthy. Calling oneself "wolf-kin" is a delusion no matter how you look at it. They aren't hurting anybody but they're creating an echo chamber that validates their delusions which prevents these people from functioning normally in social situations.

It was out of necessity not really because she wanted too

Transgenderism only became a big deal in the UK in the 70's so he could divorce his (trans) wife and take everything, by arguing the wedding was never valid. Before then everyone just kind of went on with it.

In fact, gender dysphoria is a mental illness and having your gender correctly reassigned through hormone medication and surgery is a successful and healthy way of treating it. Why is this controversial? Is it implying that the treatment itself is the illness?

Anxiety and depression are both mental illnesses. If taking hormones and undergoing elective surgery alleviates those symptoms, so be it

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is under revision and there may be changes to its current classification of intense persistent gender incongruence as "gender identity disorder."

Source: http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx

So I guess it's kinda arbitrary what we call an illness when talking about someone's mental state. I'd guess /u/Soperos's definition of mental illness is somewhat different to the APA. They only consider it an illness only if

it causes significant distress or disability

While the layman's term might be: "not normal".

The APA specifically says that being transgender is not a mental illness..

Great. An appeal to authority.

So when it was considered a mental illness before a few years ago, was it, in fact, a mental illness?

Come on. You're smarter than this.

Who said I knew better? I said I haven't seen anything. People who get angry and aggressive by someone saying they are ignorant on a subject are not right in the head.

As for the rest, I was bringing politics into it, and showing how the two behaviors are similar. All pretty clearly laid out.

But that's an interpretation of the term that comes from stigmatizing mental illnesses as a whole.

There is nothing incompatible with declaring gender dysphoria to be a mental illness and being completely okay with people getting transgender surgery. Those are not mutually exclusive.

Mental illness is typically defined as something roughly akin to "some feeling or mismatch in the brain that disrupts daily function or the feeling of well-being." GID definitely fits here. The problem is that people attach strongly negative connotations to them. Most of the posts in this thread are of that form--"all mental illnesses are bad so we should just take X/Y/Z off of the list and then it's not a problem anymore." It starts with saying "all mental illnesses are bad" but we should instead say "most mental illnesses are curable in some fashion that the afflicted feels comfortable with."

(I had severe depression for a few years and tried to get through it on my own because of said stigma. That's the real problem here. Talking to someone helped a ton but I was afraid to jump into it.)

Fair enough. Maybe that's my issue, because, as someone who has mental illness problems (anxiety and mild depression), I don't understand the desire to "cure" it. I think like trans people, many cases (excluding a few, which seem more like a mental DISEASE than illness, psychosis etc) of mental illness should be properly channeled instead of trying to cure it.

Anxious? Exercise more. I 100 percent guarantee it helps. That's one of many things people can do. Again, maybe I'm wrong in that kind of thinking. Then again I believe everyone is mentally ill to some degree.

Being transgender can't cause someone distress?

I like that. I wanna be a galaxy, oh yeah baby get inside me.

soooo.... brave new world?

you thin? ayyy ja!

That sounds like a Red Hot Chili Peppers lyric.

Shit, if I had any money I'd give you gold good sir.

In this case, less than a few days, on life support and clearly not going to get any better - just a shell of their former self who is trapped in their body, perhaps sane (maybe a bit insane) and most likely in serious pain.

Woowee, here we go! Let's dive into this particular thread, shall we? Sorted by controversial for your viewing pleasure. And as we'll see, not a single group is excluded from shame.

And wow, right off the bat, these comments about rape. One which directly insults women for being assaulted and the other which is "vague," but definitely a thinly veiled attempt to insult not just women, but men as well. Killing two birds with one stone, a proper AskReddit controversial thread wouldn't be complete with out it.

This bollocks about men being the superior gender is GILDED and has 1000+ upvotes.

JEWS CONTROL THE MEDIA

This one is veritable Chex mix, you pick your flavor.

"I hate black people" and goes on to say how they have no respect for anyone. Was that not enough for you? Have another anti-black comment!

Women are emotional and shouldn't be allowed outside without men

And to top off the shit cake: here's a comment that targets white, middle class men, calling them "children." (EDIT: the sole reply to that comment is comparably idiotic.)

You want more? 'Cause I got more. I got enough to stuff a shit buffet.