Helpy, if gay marriage is legalized in Minnesota, where will it end?

Usually, a marriage ends only with the divorce or death of one of the spice. (With the move from “husband and wife” to “spouse and spouse”, we find that the slightly irregular plural-formation rules of English come to the fore; in this case, by analogy with “mouse” and “mice”, we find that the plural of “spouse” is “spice”.)

However, it may be you are curious, not about where a given gay marriage will end, but rather, the end of the process of which “gay marriage is legalized in Minnesota” is but one small part. There are two aspects of this to evaluate. The first is the question of what Minnesota might legalize next, and when they will run out of things to legalize. For this, Helpy would hesitate to guess; even Helpy’s drawn-on glasses cannot always pierce the vale of the future. You may confidently assume, however, that whatever it is, people will threaten to move someplace where it is already legal in protest.

The other is the question of where the legalization of gay marriage will end. In the United States, the answer is probably either Alabama or Utah. Alabama holds some notoriety for being the last state to repeal their law against interracial marriage (it was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1967’s Loving v. Virginia, but remained on the books until 2000). Utah’s strong Mormon presence has a reputation for influencing legislation significantly. Of course, it’s quite possible that the question will end up settled at a federal level before that — the thirty-three year gap for interracial marriage is a little surprising, maybe, but not impossible.

Help! The Ratio Pi has turned sentient and is freaking out about being replaced by Tau. They(/he/she?) won’t listen to me no matter what I say. How do I make them see reason?

You don’t. You are trying to make something irrational see reason; obviously this won’t work. You will get better results trying to encourage them to transcend.

What’s the appropriate response to somebody who tells me to “be polite”, while ignoring the substance of everything I say? I don’t think a discussion of the difference between cargo-cult politeness and the real thing would be helpful, but I’m not sure about the relative merits of something like “I’ll start being polite when you stop being stupid” vs. a simple “Fuck you”, or maybe something completely different?

True politeness consists of creating the circumstances in which people will feel comfortable. Your correspondent, clearly, is most comfortable with disregard for the substance of communications. Which is to say: You should simply disregard the instruction to “be polite”. Any attempt to act on it will ultimately create a disparity of attention to the substance of communications, which will create social stress. It will inevitably be impolite. You cannot act on this suggestion, nor act against it, without contradiction. You must disregard it utterly.

Helpy does not suggest that you specifically be impolite. Rather, act as though the request had never been made; disregard it entirely, and act as you would if it had never been made. Neither acquiesce nor rebel, but let the words flow past you as meaningless noise, repeated so often they have lost all meaning. Make what you will of the formless void; it has no preferences, and imposes no structure on you.

Help! I’ve developed an obsession with gay sex and I don’t know how to stop! Err… Stop being obsessed.

Quit the job with the Focus on the Family.

Do you have to draw your glasses on every morning? Does that get optometrically expensive?

Helpy’s glasses are drawn on, but this does not imply an alternative state of not-yet-drawn or no-longer-drawn; rather, the drawn-on state of Helpy’s glasses is a fundamental attribute. Helpy does not transition from a glasses-free state to a glasses-bearing state through the act of drawing; rather, Helpy manifests only in those universes where Helpy’s glasses were previously drawn on. Helpy has always had glasses on, although he had not always had glasses on a year ago.

Anonymous asked helpymchelperson:

Helpy, I think I’m in love.

And of course, you have written Helpy because you want to know whether you are correct. Taking the nature of the question into account, Helpy has neglected this question for several months. You will find that, by now, you know.

Anonymous asked helpymchelperson:

I have a problem: Before I really learned of social justice I never thought of people as defined to the categories they were in. Now however the more I learn of each aspect of social justice the more I actually start to see things and mentally group people into categories and define them based wholly upon those categories. I’m not comfortable with becoming this person: How do I stop and go back to seeing people as individuals rather than contents of categories?

By avoiding cultural appropriation! Specifically, realize that grouping people into categories and defining them based wholly upon those categories is a distinctive cultural tradition of Archie Bunker. You are appropriating this cultural tradition despite not being Archie Bunker, and that’s very rude. You should stop. Similarly, clinging to an exact and literal interpretation of a general principle is a distinctive cultural tradition you should not be appropriating like that.

The only things you can do without appropriating existing cultural traditions are to treat people as individuals and be nice to them. Everything else is taken. Sorry.

I’ve noticed I’m not very Raven at all. Are there any steps I can take to make myself more Raven?

There are a number! The simplest method is to enter an untested teleportation chamber with a succession of Ravens, each time becoming progressively more Raven. Alternatively, observe an infinite number of things other than yourself which are not Raven [Hempel 1965].

Anonymous asked helpymchelperson:

Helpy, I have just invented a time machine. When should I travel to?

Simple! Travel to now, but not necessarily right away [Morrissey 1985]. But when should you travel to now? Well, you should do it later, when you’ve found out when you should have travelled to. If you travel any further back, you risk breaking the chain of events that got you the machine. So don’t. Instead, wait until you can tell you when to go and when to go there, then go back to now and tell you that. Also, change your name to something short, and define a process for changing your name every three months to something short, memorable, easily-distinguished, and predictable. This will help a lot with the pronouns. You may also wish to prototype yourself with a dead bird immediately upon your arrival.