" I watched some old episodes from the 70s recently and they were pushing feminism back then but it was never the focus of the show."

THIS! Very much THIS!

Which has been a problem for the last several years. It's focus!

Seriously, Joy to the World would have been a decent Christmas show but again, even in TINY areas, the focus is obvious, annoying and can take you out of the moment. In the train exchange when the Doctor is asking "Ham and Cheese on toast with a pumpkin latte" to a lone woman in the 1950-60s train car" Later in the show while doing the Drs victory lap the woman on the train car indicates clearly she's going to break up with her girl friend. She makes a strong point of it! To a stranger at a time when it was something people didn't talk about.

Why? I'm sorry, but it's forced and it's constant. Very annoying. In my daily, every day life I've don't encounter people who either are vocal about being gay (or straight) or are clearly in a relationship with someone of the same sex (or different sex) as often as the Doctor seems to lately. It's a distraction when it's in pretty much every episode and it's NOTICABLE. It's like seeing a boom mic in the corner of the screen, or catching a misplaced prop where it shouldn't be -- only worse -- because it's deliberate.

Don't even care that 15 was gay -- or black. Didn't matter. It shouldn't be the showcase of the show. The writing was horrible most of the time (Boom was good and there were maybe 2 OK episodes) and this constant redirecting everything to "Oh, look -- a gay couple!" or "I need to break up with my lesbian lover" or SOMETHING.

Besides, before River Song, the Doctor really had no "romantic life". And that arc did not dominate the the show or get mentioned in some way or another in every episode, yet the Doctor in just a single episode met and apparently fell head over heels with a a guy who was a space bounty hunter. That had never happened before and was out of character.

I watched every single episode of Dr Who since Pertwee and all the episodes that predate him that still exist. What's happening now started "full speed ahead" with 13 -- enough that they brought back Dr12 for a short run as Dr14. Looks like pushing the "gay focus" "over-drive" button on Dr15 didn't help the ratings at all -- and now we got Doctor-Rose for 16 to pull another "save" attempt after just 17.5 episodes of Dr 15!! 2 short seasons, the last 20 mins of Dr.14 bi-regenerating to 15 and 1 xmas episode). Haven't seen that short a run since Dr. 9.

The Disney deal was hoping to get Disney dollar$ to cover the production costs now that BBC is totally changing their "business model". That plan was for 2 seasons and 1 Whoniverse mini-series (about to air). I've heard nothing about anything beyond that from Disney so far so far... so I'm thinking Disney is out of the picture now and Doctor Who will, if we're lucky, still have an occasional Xmas special (hopefully with Moffet writing without any RTD influence). And this had nothing to do with Disney -- this was ENTIRELY RTD.

Look! AI has reproduced the Slashdot effect! Something that's been mostly unheard of for at least a decade!

Awe... all the good feels of days gone by. What old is new again.

"you got me bud."

You "got" yourself. Sigh...

"I'm glad you know my intent more than I do."

I know what you wrote -- it's still there. Read it yourself if you don't recall. I know that you moved the goalpost (changing "strong correlation" to the far more benign statement calling it "a component") and called me "presumptuous".

Your full quote: " I said it's a component and silly to pretend otherwise"

Me after pointing out your goalpost re-location: "It's silly to pretend otherwise, to quote some guy on /."

Then you called me rude and suggested I was self-righteous and had a huge ego -- and THEN you played the "victim" card rather than addressing my argument which actually material to back it up!.

This is all kinds of awesome. Thank you for the entertainment.

Just a helpful hint: It's fairly common to get treated as you treat others.

Go ahead and tell me again "how silly it is" again. Please.

"...the sky is ALWAYS FALLING. Always!"

You know that similar warnings play a strong role in other tales, right? Not just chicken little... Remember, the boy who cried wolf was eventually right -- there was a wolf.

"But it appears that the reason for the darkening, especially far away from land is unknown."

Most reasons for "dark waters" is life. A lot of little life. Clear waters would strongly suggest very low nutrients. Like the "crystal clear" waters around some islands? They're mostly missing a LOT of nutrients in the water to support microscopic life, but hey! At least you can see the bottom clearly!

I'd bet dollars to donuts there's a lot of "bloom" going on.

" I said it's a component and silly to pretend otherwise"

Did you really say that?

"Don't try to pretend there isn't a strong correlation between poverty and race"

Nope. You said something entirely different with "strong" implications. The correlation is meaningless, which is what I claimed, strong or otherwise. It's silly to pretend otherwise, to quote some guy on /.

Now, regarding your citation: Where did I indicate that having a diploma was a key to staying out of poverty?

The nutshell of my list are DO NOT HAVE A KID BEFORE FINISHING YOUR SCHOOLING AND DO NOT HAVE A KID BEFORE MARRIAGE. (caps to make it clear, because you seemed to have missed that). Any education will be helpful in the long run.

Simple stat look up just looking on families in poverty:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fojjdp.ojp.gov%2Fstatisti...

"In 2021, 9.5% of children living with two parents lived below the poverty level, compared to 31.7% of children living with a single parent.
Children living with only their mothers in 2021 were more than twice as likely to live in poverty than those living with only their fathers (35.0% vs. 17.4%)."

Note: Most single families are living with their mothers by a long shot.

"Don't try to pretend there isn't a strong correlation between poverty and race"

I'll "pretend" that's it's far less about race than you seem to suspect. Measure "choices", not skin color of the end result.

Example: Measure those who:
o finished high school
o didn't have a kid while in school
o go to college or a vocational school
o don't have a kid while in school (part II)
o don't have a kid before getting married.

Now, measure the results of those who made those choices. Far, far less poverty along all racial groups. Correlation is truly meaningless and "equity" is about trying to make the results the SAME regardless of what every one puts in to their lives rather than "fix" the social aspect of the problem that appears to be the actual cause.

You don't know CA.

"Since a victim impact statement is a real thing, and has implications in sentencing, is it your premise that an AI construct is saying exactly what the dead person would say?"

The full story I read about this earlier included that folks' have the ability to present their impact statement anyway they want. This family decided to present it as how they remember their loved one -- and that's exactly how it was presented to the court.

"Problem is that almost always the statement "I will pray for you" is made with passive-aggressive intent. "

I've never experienced this. At all. I have no doubt you perceive it this way is more of a reflection on you and distrust of the "bad other people" who believe differently than you.

" It's also offensive because it's not a real meaningful gesture, it's easy to just tell someone you'll pray for them and you get the benefit of seeming to care for no real effort."

Ah, so for you everyone who believes something other than you must be just pretending to care about you, your soul, or whatever? Deliberately being fake and insincere? Wow, what a "wonderful" world you live in. You can stay there. Alone. Better yet, maybe move to an island with a soccer or volley ball. You have a very low opinion of individuals.

"I wish you people would learn how offensive it is to tell someone you are going to pray for them."

Seriously? How effed up is that? Is it offensive if they tell you they are making coffee when they get home? Is it offensive if they tell you I'm so sorry $_Bad_Thing happened to you? Why is it offensive that the so feel your pain they want to reach out to their $_Diety to help you?

My family had something horrific happen to us and folks meaning well would say "God only gives us challenges he knows we can overcome". My response was always: "I wish God didn't have so much faith in us" -- but I felt no offense in their good will. Good people care about other people. Focus on that.

Are you a prof in CA?

"It's hard to come up with a better term"

"mean". Mean is a better term. Thought I was being pop-culture funny while also being "punny" -- I thought wrong. Typical would be a functional range where most people would fall. Literally, "not abnormal".

"Neurodivergent" is kind of meaningless when it appears that most people are (or at least believe they are) "Neurodivergent".

Thinking of oneself as "challenged" in some way because they don't have a brain like Einstein, Hawking, Penrose, Cox, etc is just wrong. Seriously, there's effectively no difference in folks with 110 IQ and 90 IQ, yet they represent most (over 60%) people.