(1) HEARTS MADE OF TIN. David Brin says robots will be so charming they won’t have to conquer us physically, in “Endearing Visages”.
I’ve been pondering Artificial Intelligence or AI a lot, lately, with several papers and reviews pending. (Indeed, note who is one of the ‘top ten people followed by AI researchers.’) One aspect that’s far too-little discussed is how robots are being designed to mess with human emotions.
Long before artificial intelligences become truly self-aware or sapient, they will be cleverly programmed by researchers and corporations to seem that way. This – it turns out – is almost trivially easy to accomplish, as (especially in Japan) roboticists strive for every trace of appealing verisimilitude, hauling their creations across the temporary moat of that famed “uncanny valley,” into a realm where cute or pretty or sad-faced automatons skillfully tweak our emotions.
Human empathy is both one of our paramount gifts and among or biggest weaknesses. For at least a million years, we’ve developed skills at lie-detection (for example) in a forever-shifting arms race against those who got reproductive success by lying better! (And yes, there was always a sexual component to this.)
But no liars ever had the training that these new, Hiers or Human-Interaction Empathic Robots will get, learning via feedback from hundreds, then thousands, then millions of human exchanges around the world, adjusting their simulated voices and facial expressions and specific wordings, till the only folks able to resist will be sociopaths. (And sociopaths have plenty of chinks in their armor, as well.)
(2) READERCON. A lot of good tweets coming out of Readercon this weekend. Here’s a small sampling.
https://twitter.com/fran_wilde/status/751843287242268676
Warning at Readercon panel "Belm-Martin-Wilde Food Science Extravaganza" at #readercon pic.twitter.com/1O8pbjvYxN
— Sara (@leprechaun42) July 9, 2016
(3) THE TWINKIE OFFENSE. Hostess has marketed two new Twinkie flavors to celebrate the release of the new Ghostbusters movie — Key Lime Slime and White Fudge Marshmallow.
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man wouldn’t be able to contain himself! Or maybe he would — isn’t that kind of like cannibalism? Either way, if you like marshmallows, you are going to like these Twinkies.
(4) FEZ CLAIM TO FAME. Closed for renovation in 2012, the world’s oldest library in Morocco reopened this year.
A wealthy Tunisian merchant’s daughter, Fatima al-Fihri, founded al-Qarawiyyin University as a mosque in 859 CE. By the 10th century, Atlas Obscura reports, it grew into a full-fledged university with a library. Today, it’s considered to be the world’s oldest existing and continually operating institute of higher education, as well as the first degree-awarding educational institution. Eventually, the University of al-Qarawiyyin moved to another location in Fez, but the mosque and library remained at the original site.
(5) CROTCHETY DOESN’T MEAN WRONG. Steve Davidson has a point – “Pay for the Privilege” at Amazing Stories.
…sometimes a new way of doing things comes along and it is Just. Not. Right.
Take the internet as a perfect example.
Why are we all still individually paying for it?
It watches and records us without our consent. Data miners have found all manner of ways to entice us into revealing even more behaviors and data through the internet of things. Those useful, free apps and games aren’t really free, are they?
Aggregated data and its derivatives are both earning and saving business concerns billions of dollars annually. And we’re just in the infancy of this technology.
(6) MONKEYING AROUND. Those with Facebook accounts might get a kick out of the Turner Classic Movies video of Dr. Zaius sharing stories about working with Charlton Heston on the set of Planet of the Apes.
Dr. Zaius
(7) NOT AS ANIMATED AS THEY USED TO BE. How old are your favorite cartoon characters? Artist Andrew Tarusov has created a gallery of favorites who show their age.
(8) PHYSICIST WHO DID FANAC. Sidney Coleman remembered on the Not Even Wrong blog.
A couple months ago there was a session at an APS meeting with the topic Sidney Coleman Remembered. Slides are available for talks by Coleman’s student Erick Weinberg and colleague Howard Georgi. Georgi has recently posted a written version of the talk here. He also a few years ago wrote this biographical memoir about Coleman for the National Academy of Sciences.
David Derbes and collaborators [see comment section for details] are putting together a book version of Coleman’s famous lectures on quantum field theory, hope to be finished with this by the end of the summer.
Coleman was a long-time Boston fan and a founder of Advent:Publishers.
Sidney, Dave Kyle and James White at the 1987 Worldcon in Brighton. Photo taken and copyright by Andrew Porter.
(9) FEYNMAN TALES. Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek writes in Quanta Magazine “How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space”. The story begins in 1982 when Wilczek asked Feynman, “Why doesn’t empty space weigh anything?”
I asked Feynman the most disturbing question in physics, then as now: “There’s something else I’ve been thinking a lot about: Why doesn’t empty space weigh anything?”
Feynman, normally as quick and lively as they come, went silent. It was the only time I’ve ever seen him look wistful. Finally he said dreamily, “I once thought I had that one figured out. It was beautiful.” And then, excited, he began an explanation that crescendoed in a near shout: “The reason space doesn’t weigh anything, I thought, is because there’s nothing there!”
(10) BEAGLE COMING TO SDCC. Peter S. Beagle will be at Comic Con 2016, participating in a panel entitled “Creating Your Own Universe”, in addition to signing autographs and meeting fans at his table.
His first novel in well over a decade, Summerlong, will be released September 15 on Tachyon.
(11) SULU STILL BEING DEBATED. Adam-Troy Castro answered a reply to his post about Sulu being revealed as a gay character in Star Trek Beyond.
Concerned STAR TREK fan in a thread, on the revelation of Sulu’s sexuality:
“It is also pointless for the story to just make the character gay for no other reason than to be so. Is important to the plot? Does it advance the story somehow? This is ultimately the only way it would make sense.”
What you’re talking about is the principle of Chekhov’s Gun. Not Pavel Chekov, but Anton Chekhov, who held that if you put a gun on the mantelpiece in one scene, then at some point somebody was going to have to take it down and fire it.
What perplexes is just how any STAR TREK character’s homosexuality could possibly “be important to the plot” or “advance the story somehow.”….
In the original series, one crew member being Asian, another being Scottish, another being a southern gentleman, another being Russian, another being African, was all texture. It was there, and then for the most part unremarked-upon, because Gene Roddenberry wanted to establish, within the boundaries of his time, that in the far future he wished to present, this was nothing unusual. (And even then, we had manifestations of his time’s near-sightedness, as when Janice Lester bitterly complains that the profession of starship captains is closed to women.)
Similarly, that brief shot of Sulu’s husband does not “advance the plot;” chances are that there will be no action climax where the ship can only be saved by the two of them having sex atop the warp nacelles. It does, however, provide more texture to the hypothetical universe around them, by establishing for the first time ever that Sulu has a personal life, that he must leave his family behind every time he goes on some mission for Kirk’s glory, that in the utopian world where he lives a marriage like his is just something that exists and that it is not remarked-upon as unusual, by anyone.
Texture….
(12) ALL’S QUIET ON THE DRAGON FRONT. Nominations for the inaugural Dragon Awards close on July 25, just a little over two weeks from now. If anybody’s excited about that, they’re mostly keeping it a secret from the internet.
Declan Finn wrote a long post about what to vote for so that he could ask people to nominate his book Honor at Stake (which is absolutely fine under the rules). Then he used the Sad Puppies list as a memory prompt for the rest of his suggestions.
Alfred Gennesson’s picks for the new Dragon Awards led off with John C. Wright, Larry Correia, and Rod Walker (published by Castalia House). Then he signed off with these thoughts —
I like the Dragon Awards already. Quality indicators for the year are going to be more honest than Hugo/Nebula, just in nomination process. And those ignore games. When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Two other writers are looking for support on Twitter —
Still time to vote in the Dragon Con awards, and yes #Steeplejack and #Sekret Machines: CS are both eligible 🙂 https://t.co/6L8EF8uRFK
— A.J. Hartley (@authorajhartley) July 7, 2016
Nomination Deadline: July 25th – ANY FAN CAN NOMINATE! https://t.co/ARsDHwRGGm #DragonCon #DragonAwards pic.twitter.com/wDeZKKv7Xy
— Princess General Alethea Kontis (@AletheaKontis) July 8, 2016
However, since June 1, the only tweets about the Dragon Awards other than from people already mentioned were generic calls to vote from Larry Correia and Daddy Warpig.
(13) FELAPTON SPEAKS. Camestros Felapton reviews all five Hugo-nominated Novellas.
I think this is one of the most interesting categories this year. Each one of the nominees is a plausible candidate as a finalist but there isn’t a real stand-out winner. Three out of the five are by well-established writers and two are by newer writers. The least good (IMHO) has some excellent writing and made me want to read more by the same author. The best felt lacking in places and didn’t hit knock-your-socks-off great.
(14) STATE OF MIND. The Publishers Weekly story poses the question “Was Philip K. Dick a Madman or a Mystic?”, but do we really have to ask?
In The Divine Madness of Philip K. Dick, Kyle Arnold delves into the complicated psyche of one of the 20th century’s most important writers. At the center of the subject is the profound vision Dick experienced in 1974, which he referred to as “2-3-74.” Arnold, a psychologist at Coney Island Hospital and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, explains the experience and its significance.
In February of 1974, Philip K. Dick was home recovering from dental surgery when, he said, he was suddenly touched by the divine. The doorbell rang, and when Dick opened the door he was stunned to see what he described as a “girl with black, black hair and large eyes very lovely and intense” wearing a gold necklace with a Christian fish symbol. She was there to deliver a new batch of medications from the pharmacy. After the door shut, Dick was blinded by a flash of pink light and a series of visions ensued. First came images of abstract paintings, followed by philosophical ideas and then, sophisticated engineering blueprints. Dick believed the pink light was a spiritual force which had unlocked his consciousness, granting him access to esoteric knowledge.
(15) ASIMOV SINGS! Fanac.org has uploaded a third segment of sound recording of the 1971 Hugo Banquet at Noreascon.
Banter and badinage from Robert Silverberg and Isaac Asimov, and the awarding of the Hugos. Asimov sings!
(16) RENT LONG AND PROSPER. Treknews featured this movie-related promotion.
In the commercial, entitled “Business Is Going Boldly,” Enterprise employees are shown beaming, speaking Klingon in the break room and renting the Starship Enterprise to customers.
Remember, the Romulans always get the damage waiver.
As we’ve previously reported, select Enterprise locations will have Star Trek related signage, plus Enterprise airport shuttle buses in New York City and Philadelphia will be wrapped with images of the U.S.S. Enterprise and the phrase: “Until We Can Beam You Up, We’ll Pick You Up”.
The dialect jokes are amusing, but should Enterprise Rent-A-Car really be renting starships to Klingons?
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson. (OK Steve – now it’s up to you whether you record a hat trick.)]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
::ticky ::
7) was a hoot!
I had completely forgotten about the Dragon Awards.
Second by only a second
Ask not what your pixels can scroll for you,
But how you may scroll for your pixels.
(11) Sulu’s sexuality
Once again, someone weighs in with the deeply considered opinion that non-straight characters have to justify their very existence.
Some days I just feel very tired.
ETA: Other days, you luck into fifth position.
(16) I think that commercial is more entertaining than any of the movie trailers. If I could find the time I’d fanfic it.
(16) RENT LONG AND PROSPER.
This is a merchandising tie-in which is long, long overdue. 😀
They might be able to fit a shuttlecraft into the parking area at the Enterprise office nearest to me – it’s in a strip mall.
Today’s read — Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion
A story in which a zombie falls in love with a live girl, told from the zombie’s point of view. One of the odder adaptations of Romeo & Juliet that I’ve read in a while. A well-written, quick read that I quite liked for the most part. The end veered a bit into a kind of love-based mysticism that I thought was somewhat better handled in, for example, His Dark Materials, but I appreciated the points it was making. Thumbs up.
Having seen the 5th comment come & go with no Steve Davidson, I now feel free to post this comment.
(1) HEARTS MADE OF TIN
Not quite robots, but Pokemon as an ARG are definitely on the path to making us love our AI overlords.
Also, I find it amusing that the Darwin police felt the need to announce this:
(12) ALL’S QUIET ON THE DRAGON FRONT
Not that dragon, but a different dragon: next season’s Game of Thrones might well be delayed because of insufficient winter…
(14) STATE OF MIND. The Publishers Weekly story poses the question “Was Philip K. Dick a Madman or a Mystic?”
[A] Madman
[B] Mystic
[C] Yes
[D] Something else I will explain in the comments.
(12) ALL’S QUIET ON THE DRAGON FRONT.
Larry Correia also mentioned it on his Facebook page today/yesterday.
Part of me wants Declan Finn to get nominated.
There will be time to pixel and to scroll.
Me too, but is that the good part or the bad part?
I lack the wisdom to discern which. It might be the imp of the perverse or it might be Timothy whispering in my ear.
@Kyra, “Warm Bodies” was also a halfway-decent romantic comedy movie under the same name (and that’s high praise from me; I don’t generally care for rom-coms). I don’t know if the book (which I have not read) is a novelization of the movie or the movie is a movification (that’s not a word but it should be) of the book, however.
Re: #5, that’s just WRONG. Key lime is yellow, not green…..
Camestros Felapton: It might be the imp of the perverse or it might be Timothy whispering in my ear.
So the Bad Part or the Bad Part, then. 🐱
12) I had completely forgotten about the Dragon Awards, though I should probably nominate/vote, if only to offer a counterpoint against the puppies of the world.
16) I can’t be the only one who always wanted to walk up to an Enterprise Rent-a-Car counter and say, “Forget the car, I’d like the rent the Enterprise, please.”
Chaotic-neutral or lawful-evil?
10. Very excited about the new Peter S. Beagle book. I met him in Vancouver, and he was generous with his time and very encouraging to those new to the art and business of writing fantasy novels.
Given the troubles of the world, it’s a relief to have something to anticipate rather than dread. And what a beautiful title, Summerlong.
> “I don’t know if the book (which I have not read) is a novelization of the movie or the movie is a movification (that’s not a word but it should be) of the book, however.”
The book came first, so the movie is a movification. 🙂 I haven’t seen the movie, but from reading a plot summary it sounds like a close but not identical adaptation.
A sequel to the book called The Burning World is also apparently coming out sometime in 2017.
Clicky. Not awake.
(1) HEARTS MADE OF TIN. – This reminded me of something that happened in the US recently, where apparently a “bomb robot” was used by law enforcement to kill a suspect. The future is here, in all its…I’ll get back to you on that.
(11) SULU STILL BEING DEBATED. – Good stuff there. I never got the rationale for the whole “A character can be a PoC/ LGBT/ etc only if there is a clear narrative reason for it”. I didn’t realise that they couldn’t just, y’know, *exist*.
(12) ALL’S QUIET ON THE DRAGON FRONT. – C’mon Declan! You didn’t really pull it of with SP4, but maybe the self promotion thing will work for the Dragons! I haz faith.
I look forward to the Dragon nominees. It will be, like the Gemmel were, illuminating.
(11) This is silly. I don’t read stories just for plot–if I did, I wouldn’t be reading at all; I’d be working Sudoku, or twisting Rubik’s Cubes, or slapping together jigsaw puzzles. I read for people. Plot without people (aka Nutty Nuggets) is worthless. (Which is another reason I hated Independence Day: Resurgence–the characters, with the brief exception of Dr. Okun, were sacrificed to the Gods of Scientifically Illiterate Scripts and CGI on Steroids.)
So what if a scene of Sulu’s partner and daughter doesn’t “advance the plot”? It shows us more of what makes Sulu tick, and makes us care about him as a person. And I notice he’s not complaining about Spock and Uhura’s hetero love affair not advancing the plot.
Ashley Madison admitted to using “fembots” to lure men into joining their service.
“DONT
DATEHAVE AFFAIRS WITH ROBOTS!”Also, randomly, I saw the second book of a SF series written by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin at the store the other day. First book is A Vision of Fire, second is A Dream of Ice. Anyone read these? I’ll read Agent Scully’s books even if they’re only pretty okay. 😉
It might be the imp of the perverse or it might be Timothy whispering in my ear.
Wait. What? Timothy is not the imp of the perverse? I’m…I’ve stumbled into an alternate reality, right?
(7) NOT AS ANIMATED – I kind of love these, but why do they all look like they’ve retired to condos in Florida?
(11) SULU STILL BEING DEBATED – My first response is not kind. My second is that as long as straight (and white and, etc.) is seen as the default, there is real value in having characters who don’t represent an automatic default presented to readers and viewers. Do that often enough for long enough and the silly objection to there not being a plot driven reason for introducing non-default characters will vanish. And then, hey, what you read and view will look like the world around you (even if you can currently comfortably ignore its diversity). It’ll be magical.
::ticky::
@Dawn Incognito
“BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SPACE POPE”
(11) SULU STILL BEING DEBATED.
I hope to live long enough to never hear/read this nonsense again: “A character can be a PoC/ LGBT/ etc only if there is a clear narrative reason for it”.
People exist. They should be in stories. This should be obvious. It’s painful to be reminded we don’t/shouldn’t exist.
Cassy B, I can’t even recall from day to day what generation people are in, so pardon me if I explain too much, but there used to be these “ecch” MAD-Magazine-type trading stickers that looked like trademarked products, only more “blecch.” Looking at those tie-in Hostess products, I honest and for true thought I was looking at a couple of Wacky Packages there. Even knowing they’re not, they still look like it.
Kip W: We call that slimesplaining, don’t we?
Welllll, maybe more of a blecch thing than a slime thing, but that’s mostly because I had a dream once where I noticed that all the hand props in the dream were of some kind of parodical nature—books were titled like their MAD parodies, and products were like Wacky Packages. I quickly put 1 together and deduced that this was “that episode of Friends my office partner told me about” (he didn’t, and there was no such episode) where one of the cast members found themselves in Blecchworld, where everything was the cruddy parody version of itself. The dream itself was kind of blah, but I figured it might at least make a good story when I woke up. Meh.
(11) Sulu yadda yadda-
It’s time to just let it go. Pegg, et al have made their statement and Mr. Takei has given his. Any more arguments just come off as defensive. I get it; they thought they were doing something nice but it hasn’t turned out the way they thought. Some of the responses to Mr Takei that I’ve seen have veered into very smug condescending nattering about how he ‘just doesn’t get it’. He was asked his opinion and gave it–move on. I get what’s bothering him–it does come across like checking off a box.
That being said, the “rebooted ST” has irritated me from the start because of various things ( a friend and I saw the first one and we howled through the ‘Iowa” scenes) and that big-assed open space in the ship–I told my friend that the only reason for such a space was for a big dramatic scene and sure enough, here comes the scene with the ship spinning and people falling through an idiotic area that had no reason to exist.
@snowcrash (1) HEARTS MADE OF TIN. – This reminded me of something that happened in the US recently, where apparently a “bomb robot” was used by law enforcement to kill a suspect. The future is here, in all its…I’ll get back to you on that.
Yep the future is here. It’s not pretty.
the scene with the ship spinning and people falling through an idiotic area that had no reason to exist.
Galaxy Quest: simultaneously nostalgic and clairvoyant.
@Mike
9) Feynman is missing an n in the link to the article rendering it as Feyman.
%$#!*&^$@*!(puck slipped off my stick; someone I know waved at me from the stands; the ice is uneven; I was distracted by thinking about the Dragon awards…
Well, thanks for the opportunity of the open net, Mike. (The other team pulled their goalie due to puppies, but I just couldn’t connect.)
Speaking of Dragon Awards: “IF” (and I stress that two letter word mightily – note the italics, quotes and bolding) Fans were the kinds of people who routinely peed in other people’s punchbowls, a perfect opportunity exists to help those awards get handed out to some of the most egregious works on the planet. This would set a “standard” for years to come and render the awards as something that is only awarded by and to the clueless.
But Fans don’t do stuff like that (they actually prefer letting others do those kinds of things to themselves….)
steve davidson: Speaking of Dragon Awards: “IF” (and I stress that two letter word mightily – note the italics, quotes and bolding) Fans were the kinds of people who routinely peed in other people’s punchbowls, a perfect opportunity exists to help those awards get handed out to some of the most egregious works on the planet. This would set a “standard” for years to come and render the awards as something that is only awarded by and to the clueless.
Tain’t gonna happen — Puppies or otherwise. The Dragon Awards are, essentially, a modified juried award which allows — but is not bound by — public input.
I will be very surprised if any of the usual Puppy crap makes the Finalist list (with the possible exception of Correia and JCW, who have at least had something of a mainstream career).
Well, as a juried award, that kinda depends on who’s running it isn’t it? If it is similar to the message-fiction free awards like the CLFA, then a higher than normal Puppy distribution can be expected.
Has there been details about who/ what is organising the Dragons, and who’s on the jury?
snowcrash: Has there been details about who/ what is organising the Dragons, and who’s on the jury?
The Awards are — ostensibly — being organized by DragonCon. (Although, given that they are on a completely separate website, I have my suspicions that they are being organized by a group who went to the DragonCon concom and said, hey, let us run these awards in conjunction with your convention, and got agreement to do so.)
Subseqent to the original announcement — which was more than a bit of a CF in terms of lack of preparedness, contradicting conditions and dates, typos and accuracy — it looked to me as if the head of DragonCon realized that they were looking at a potential CF of epic proportions and stepped in to take control.
If you read the rules, they basically say that DragonCon has the ability to throw out any votes they wish and decide for themselves which works get designated as Finalists. I call that “juried” — because, ultimately, the con has final say, and they can override whatever the “popular vote” is.
and I suspect we won’t see how many people voted for each finalist.
Re #11 Sulu:
After a long exchange, the Portland contingent of my far-flung herd of ST-loving millennials concluded that representation beats the heck out of non-representation (especially in a universe they have loved almost all of their lives but has a limited spectrum with regard to gender). However, I second (or second fifth) their opinion that Bi-Bones would have been a better option because (1) it would have avoided the obvious “Takei is gay so let’s make Sulu gay” trap and (2) could have slipped seamlessly into existing canon. Bi-Bones likely has feelings for either Kirk or Spock or both but would hesitate to express them given (a) command structure and (b) their emotional unavailability.
So, anyway, Bi-Bones is my head canon from now on.
Here’s you occasional Jim Poops On Space link: long-duration space habitation impairs vision in 80% of astronauts.
On a long long one day driving and photographic adventure yesterday to clear my head, I wound up with 9+ hours of driving and hours of hiking on a long day. The audiobook I listened to was INFOMOCRACY by Malka Older.
There was a tiny bit of speculative technology that she mentions in the book only twice, a device that disables metal firearms in its vicinity. The viewpoint character muses that it is this device, and not the search engine monopoly that truly has changed society and brought the Pax Democratica (and then drops mention of the idea).
I do think that without such an invention, Older’s society would not be possible, because the ubiquity of firearms, especially in the US, would not allow the micro democratic world she envisions to exist.
11)
I find your lack of faith…disturbing. Love is real!
11) Too often, SF — especially Hollywood SF — projects into the future the mores and assumptions of present day American liberalism. Just as 1966 Star Trek is about 1966, and does not try to envision a future culture (as did, say, Heinlein and Delany) so too is 2016 Star Trek about the culture as it exists today in liberal Western societies.
Will marriage, same-sex or otherwise, exist at all centuries from now? Will monogamy still be the cultural norm? Will sexuality become more fluid, and bi-sexuality become the norm? Or maybe, with genetic selection coming into play, there might not be any gay people at all.
@Clack:
Whether or not monogamy continues to be the cultural norm, there will probably still be people with only one partner (or who are married to one person and might or might not also have casual sex with other people). Le Guin imagines a society (on the planet O) where a marriage consists of four people, exactly two men and two women—but even there, two people can be a committed couple, though they aren’t considered married and some people will assume they are looking for more partners for a proper marriage.
Also, “he has a husband” doesn’t, here and now or in a fictional future, mean that someone isn’t bisexual. Someone looking at me with any one partner and assuming I am either lesbian or straight is at best jumping to conclusions, at worst disrespectfully ignoring what I have told them.
Oh, Stephen King, no…
Obits feels like a period piece about a tabloid newspaper that’s been clumsily forced into a modern setting. Most egregious example: “Her mouth was moving, and at first I thought she must also be on her phone, but no phone was in evidence.”
(7) Actually, Lola Bunny’s first appearance was in Space Jam, making her 20 years old. She and Bugs have quite the May/December thing going on.
@Clack
“Or maybe, with genetic selection coming into play, there might not be any gay people at all.”
?? I guess this depends on what you mean by “genetic selection” and also whether you’re envisioning some sort of anti-gay hellhole that would force “gene-cleaning” on people planning to have a baby (and something else to deal with unplanned pregnancies that could be something as innocuous as forced birth control for everyone who hasn’t stated an intent to have a child or something considerably more draconian.)
If you’re envisioning something as simple as “people who don’t form romantic/sexual bonds with opposite sex partners will suffer a reproductive disadvantage that will reduce the frequency of the genes responsible in subsequent generations” I would just wonder why that (demonstrably) hasn’t worked in the eons of natural selection up to this point.
While hellholes are certainly a thing that happens in human societies, I kind of prefer my fiction a bit more upbeat.
^
I’m referring to that old SF idea of genetic engineering. The technology is already here. Eye and hair color, height, IQ, sexual orientation ( if sexual orientation has a genetic basis) — potentially all up for grabs in our near future.
You don’t have to posit a future ” hellhole”, either. Just enough heterosexual parents deciding that, on the whole, they’d prefer their child to have the same sexual orientation that they, the parents, do — and in several centuries the gay population might be drastically reduced, perhaps nearly eliminated.
I’m not saying it’s a likely future, but it is a possible one. Other minority communities that should be concerned : the deaf, and little people.